About Zizek videogame persona theory (Perverts guide to cinema)

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

...For example, people who play video games, they adopt a screen persona of a sadist, rapist, whatever. The idea is, in reality I’m a weak person, so in order to supplement my real life weakness, I adopt the false image of a strong, sexually promiscuous person,and so on and so on.

So this would be the naive reading.I want to appear stronger, more active, because in real life, I’m a weak person. But what if we read it in the opposite way? That this strong, brutal rapist, whatever, identity is my true self. In the sense that this is the psychic truth of myself and that in real life, because of social constraints and so on, I’m not able to enact it. So that, precisely because I think it’s only a game, it’s only a persona, a self-image I adopt in virtual space, I can be there much more truthful. I can enact there an identity which is much closer to my true self. We need the excuse of a fiction to stage what we truly are.
Does he mean in online gaming or in general?

[Guardia Rossa]

Does he mean in online gaming or in general?

In general, he's not talking about gaming, he is giving an example. (This is where Analytic Marxists fail to criticize him: They attack his examples and not his argument) He means our choice of "Mask", of a name in an online game, for example, tells much more about us than we would like to admit. Probably here enters all Freudo-Lacanian stuff about subconscious and whatever

Or something like that, Žižek for me is undecipherable sometimes

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Then he means virtual anonymous interactions with other people? He explicitly says a game, then could it also be an offline game where you interact with AI and can do such vile things? Tho, if that's the case I disagree.

I don't think he's fully clear and understanding the example helps with understanding the argument. I've been watching many videos of him lately, and sometimes it feels like he goes on a tangent and then I kinda get lost on his overall point. I still enjoy watching him because it makes me think.

[Invader Zim]

What a load of unreconstructed horse shit.

I was playing tetris the other day, what dark "psychic truth" does that reveal? How about Portal? Mario Kart? Theme Hospital?

As far as games involving rape go, I can think of only a very few obscure titles, like rapelay, which probably had around two players until there was a moral panic about it and the press went all "Won't someone please think of the children?" Which of course led a few of them to pirate the game just to see what the fuss was about.

[Antiochus]

What he is saying isn't new, and it isn't simply about video games and it is (to a degree) accurate. Literally dozens of writers have commented on this from as far back as Classical times; Shakespeare etc...

[Guardia Rossa]

What a load of unreconstructed horse shit.

I was playing tetris the other day, what dark "psychic truth" does that reveal? How about Portal? Mario Kart? Theme Hospital?

As far as games involving rape go, I can think of only a very few obscure titles, like rapelay, which probably had around two players until there was a moral panic about it and the press went all "Won't someone please think of the children?" Which of course led a few of them to pirate the game just to see what the fuss was about.

Really Zim? LITERALLY, I just said "This is where Analytic Marxists fail to criticize him: They attack his examples and not his argument"

You simply do exactly what I said: Attack his example, and even worse, not even attacking it properly. He more than obviously means MULTIPLAYER GAMES, as you cannot adopt a "Screen Persona" (He many times gives examples on the names in multiplayer games) when you are alone playing tetris, you adopt a "Screen Persona" when you are anonymously placed inside a group.

Still, you have completely ignored his argument.

I don't even know why I am writing this, I can't believe you aren't trolling.

On a sidenote, your name fits you ;)

[oneday]

I think it's important to show what he's showing an example of, so here's the first part of the quote:


Our fundamental delusion today is not to believe in what is only a fiction, to take fictions too seriously. It's, on the contrary, not to take fictions seriously enough. You think it's just a game? It's reality.

I have heard him use a similar argument in a completely different way in defense of universalism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2od4on3iCvc).

Basically that liberal democracy began as sort of a virtual formal ideal, with only white, property holding males having any sort of political power. But the franchise of civil rights and voting was expanded, and while not perfect, became much more universal in society and democracy became more of a reality.

Of course, the standard Marxist critique that this is not 'real' freedom still applies, but as communists today we should defend liberal democracy against the forces of neo-reaction. We should take liberal democracy very seriously. We shouldn't take it as some sort of dumb game.

I'm not 100% sure what he means by this, but it does get you to thinking.

[Invader Zim]

Well, you're a hostile one, aren't you?


Really Zim? LITERALLY, I just said "This is where Analytic Marxists fail to criticize him: They attack his examples and not his argument"

The validity of an argument is based on the sum of its parts; a hypothesis sustained by persuasive evidence. If the evidence, or "example" in this instance, does not sustain the argument then the argument presented fails. The hypothesis may well be true, but the argument attempting to demonstrate that validity is worthless. Criticising 'analytical marxists [sic]' for pointing out that the "evidence" presented is nothing of the sort, and is in fact crass nonsense, is silly.

It is also worth noting that I did not merely attack his example, rape in video games to be specific, but the over-arching narrative as a whole. If video games can be claimed to reveal the "psychic truth" (lulwut) of the player then, if the argument is valid, then it should apply to all video games, as much to violent video games as it does to non-violent games. What, as I asked above, does playing Tertis or Pacman reveal about the "psychic truth" of the player? And to complicate matters, what does it reveal if a player finishes a round of Pong and then loads Rapelay? It doesn't make one iota of difference whether that 'game' is the construction of the player's imagination or the developer's. The assumption that fantasy and roleplay = 'psychic truth' is horse-shit of the highest order. that people construct a persona which behaves in a certain fashion does not, for a second, mean that they would necessarily behave in that fashion if circumstance allowed. That is just bollocks.


He more than obviously means MULTIPLAYER GAMES, as you cannot adopt a "Screen Persona"Mario Kart and Theme Hospital are multiplayer games. And Portal's sequel is multiplayer.

If the point about screen persona is about online identity then still makes no difference. Why does it make any difference that the player is constructing a persona for themselves than taking on a violent persona constructed for them? They still occupy that fantasy mindset, the role-play aspect of the 'game' (whether it be one of their own creation or otherwise) still remains entirely present. Thus, the point stands. If it applies to one then it applies to the other.




I don't even know why I am writing this, I can't believe you aren't trolling. Given the complete lack of clarity in the quotation in the opening post, regarding whether this is multiplayer self-constructed online personas or pre-constructed personas, it is not made at all explicit. You claim this is 'obvious', which suggests to me that you lack the basic ability to comprehend the written word.


On a sidenote, your name fits you Given your hostile online personal, your "psychic truth" must be psychopathy.

[Rafiq]

Given the complete lack of clarity in the quotation in the opening post, regarding whether this is multiplayer self-constructed online personas or pre-constructed personas, it is not made at all explicit. You claim this is 'obvious', which suggests to me that you lack the basic ability to comprehend the written word.

It is quite obvious, because Zizek has made this argument more than a few times. Zizek's argument clearly relates to video games in which the subject creates a virtual identity. The topic of virtual identity is a common theme for anyone who has an elementary grasp of Zizek's works.

I mean is this really all you have? Is that it? Mario Kart? Tetris? I mean you know exactly what the fuck Zizek is talking about, he is talking about video games in which the subject is able to construct an identity in such a way that there is at least a rudimentary degree of relatability between the constructed virtual identity, and the identity of the character at hand. In fact, you knew this, you knew this is exactly what Zizek was talking about, you simply opted for playing the devil's advocate instead by playing needless games: "Oh, by that quotation, he could be talking about any video game".

The context should be plainly clear:

For example, people who play video games, they adopt a screen persona of a sadist, rapist, whatever

Zizek is not saying anyone who plays video games adopts this persona. The phenomena of people adopting fictional personas in the context of video games, for Zizek is already presupposed to be uncontroversial. The real controversy is the nature of the fiction at hand, not whether it exists or not. The only reason zizek mentions sadism, rape and violence is becasue these are subjects of cultural controversy - the application of the argument extends to all virtual identities. That Zizek is unaware few games allow one to be a rapist (Which I find highly debatable, because sexual domination, etc. is a reoccurring theme in game culture, even in games that it would be impossible to seriously re-enact in) is besdies the point - the fact is, is that video games allow peopel to do things they would otherwise not be able to do in real life.

So in effect, you haven't even touched on Zizek's argument, because his argument IS NOT that everyone who plays any video game does this, but the nature of hte fiction itself - Zizek is saying that unlike convnetional wisdom, one doesn't do all of these things in the context of a video games to compensate for what they lack in real life, for Zizek the real truth is that dimension which is allowed ot be enacted through the medium of video games. The point isn't what the virtual character as such is doing (it could be something silly - like tea-bagging - from the old Halo series, which I played growing up) but the psychological context that which the gamer controls the character.


If video games can be claimed to reveal the "psychic truth" (lulwut) of the player then, if the argument is valid, then it should apply to all video games, as much to violent video games as it does to non-violent games.

First, 'psychic truth', which simply refers to the truth of the psyche at hand, is in your mind a laughable term. Interesting.

Moving on, your argument is pure nonsense - for the simpel reason that no, nowhere is it a logical conclusion, insinuated in the structure of the argument, that this should apply to 'all video games', any more than it should apply to non-virtual games like Ping-Pong, or Pinball, which in effect are identical to games like tetris and pac-man. That is because in such games, the subject obviously does not invest a degree of his own ego in the 'character' they are taking on, the relationship is direct with regard to how the game works - your ego, and the physical thing in front of you. Notice that Zizek is dealing with a controversy surrounding Video-game violence, etc.. This controversy does not extend to games like Mario Kart, Pac-Man or Tetris and never did. The controversy extends to games that deal with the relationship between the subject and the enacting of acts that would be considered un-acceptable in real life, that offend public sensitivities. So let's compare pac man with, say, a game like Skyrim. In Pac Man, do I need to say that there is no pschological equivilent between the ghosts and the pac-man as far as real life goes? There is none, becasue the game is no different from a physical game in that regard. There is no 'virtual space' as such in Pacman, NOT in the philosophical context of the term 'virtual' as approached by Zizek (whose point revolves around 'The Reality of the Virtual'). In Skyrim (or GTA), controversy, you can murder people, as a person, hence why such games are controversial.

In more complicated games, games wherein you adopt a virtual identity, this is not the case - you psyche is facilitated through the actions of a player, whom you invest a sense of identity with. So games that would fit this, would be games from the Elder Scrolls series, the new Fallout games, Grand Theft Auto, ETC. - it is pure dishonesty that you make pretenses to not being able to distinguish these types of games, from games like Mario Kart, Tetris or Pac Man.

Furthermore, what the subject is feeling, thinking and so on IS NOT EVEN COMPARABLE. I have played such games, like Oblivion, or Grand theft auto. I have also played games like Tetris. The experience is not even comparable in playing the games, because in the case of the latter, it is literally a matter of non-subjectivized, clear cut obstacles - Tetris is no more constituting a 'virtual space' than pinball. Conversely, in Oblivion, or Grand theft auto, you an't even play the fucking games without having some kind of virtual identity. But the point isn't to establish some dogma of video game application. The point is rather simple; INSOFAR as the subject adopts a virtual identity, and yes, perhaps that can extend to Mario Kart where you are a sinister bastard throwing bananas opportunistically or however the fuck that works, one deals with the reality of the virtual - how the 'truth' of the psyche, is facilitated where it could otherwise not be. This all goes back to Lacan, who said truth has the structure of a fiction - fiction, attempts at faking the real, say more about the real than actual attempted descriptions of the real itself.


Why does it make any difference that the player is constructing a persona for themselves than taking on a violent persona constructed for them?

Zizek's reference to violence, was because this was the aspect which is controversial. Insofar as one adopts a persona, no, it doesn't always have to be violent. Zizek, in other works, uses the example of non-violent games like Second Life to illustrate the same point - games like Second Life, which are notorious for allowing players to adopt exaggerated personas, fantasy characters, that they wish they could be in real life and so on.


The validity of an argument is based on the sum of its parts; a hypothesis sustained by persuasive evidence

No, that is the validity of any 'truth' for the positivists. What you cannot fathom is the fact that your little formula only applies to arguments which make pretenses to that which is empirically controversial. There are no empirical controversies in Zizek's claim, he doesn't have to "prove" anything that isn't already accessible. The controversy is: "Should I listen to this blah blah nonsense or should I go about my day content with my ignorance" - in which case, Zizek doesn't have to 'prove' to you anything - you either invest in a scientific understanding of ideological/psychological processes, or you do not. Because the point of science is not to uncover 'truth', but to uncover PRACTICAL truth. Those uninterested in understanding the world, are therefore uninterested in practically changing or traversing it - so we have nothing to say to you.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Zizek is not saying anyone who plays video games adopts this persona. The phenomena of people adopting fictional personas in the context of video games, for Zizek is already presupposed to be uncontroversial.
Got any links that prove that?

for Zizek the real truth is that dimension which is allowed to be enacted through the medium of video games. The point isn't what the virtual character as such is doing (it could be something silly - like tea-bagging - from the old Halo series, which I played growing up) but the psychological context that which the gamer controls the character.

What do you mean by that, it's not the act itself, but the psychological context? Could you explain further? If you have no regard for human life in a videogame, unless the violence is forced upon you by the story, so games like GTA, Skyrim where violence to a point is arbitrary (specially with bystanders), means you have no regard for real human life in your true self?

From what I understand I do not agree with what he said, but I'm not going to argue until I'm 100% sure of what he meant.

[Rafiq]

Got any links that prove that?

To prove what? Whether or not the existence (rather than non-existence) of online personas themselves is uncontroversial? I will not waste time 'proving' that, because anyone who doesn't have their head under a rock should know this. Go look up a game called Second Life.

One should be careful in demands for proof - in demanding proof, that means you have real qualifications for what this proof is, and why it is necessary. Simply demanding 'proof' as a knee jerk reaction to be convinced about something without need of critical thought, is not a proper way to approach an argument.

Or are you looking for proof that Zizek presupposes it is not controversial? What kind of proof are you looking for? Look at the structure of Zizek's argument, which deals with 'the reality of the virtual', which is a commonly reocurring theme (truth has the structure of a fiction) in the film in question that which you got the quote from. Nowhere is it structured in his argument that he feels he needs to prove that in video games, people take on fictional personas. He does not insinuate that this applies to all video games, he, in his usual 'I don't want to waste any time on stupid bullshit' attitude, brushed it off and said 'You know, in video games, people take on this or that persona' - attempting to critically assess this, int he context of a film where he is actually speaking, by literally taking the grammatical structure of the sentance seriously, outside of its contextual expression, is so laughable and pathetic - the fact that Zim would come and go "Oh, what about pac man" without any insight about the context of the statement is literally so silly. And I follow Zizek obsessively - I watch many of his lectures AND I read his works, his books. When he is speaking, he doesn't feel like he needs to waste time on such trivialities. Because his response would be "Of course I don't mean fucking tetris!" - because the SUBSTANCE of the argument itself, which is not trying to 'prove' this or that, would not allow one to ask such a silly question as it would make clear what he's talking about. He LITERALLY sais 'you know;', meaning, you know the controversy he's talking about.

Zizek's argument IS NOT "Contrary to popular belief, people in video games take on popular personas". It is, "People think that these personas are constructed to supplement a weakness of the psyche. On the contrary, there is more truth in their fantasy about themselves, then their 'real', everyday identity". This is a common reoccuring theme in Lacanian psychoanalysis, and it is why he analyzes movies to understand things about society - truth has the structure of a fiction for Zizek, and this is an elaboration of this assertion.


What do you mean by that, it's not the act itself, but the psychological context?

Meaning the actual pathological investment the player has in his character. This investment, immersion, is necessary, because a person just hitting random buttons and killing people does not tell us anything. The identity and the action upon that identity is what is of importance. So the point is - the psychologicla/pathological context of the actions.

Of course this doesn't mean that paying an online multiplayer game, you actually are a horrible person for killing others or are a psychopath. That's not the point. It's far more complex than that. Think of it this way:

Someone is being a video game tough guy. He elicits the response of: "Oh, you only do this becasue in real life you're a coward, you're weak and feeble and you need this to supplement your existence". Zizek sais "on the contrary, he truly is that tough guy, but because of real-world obstacles to the enacting of this authentic psyche, his expression is that of a weakling, etc." - for Zizek virtual space allows one to truly be themselves, enact their real fantasies, and these fantasies say more about themselves then otherwise. But only insofar as this response (could be) is elicited, is this relevant, because that is the controversy he is pertaining it. That means half-playing a game or even competitively playing a multiplayer game while killing people, doesn't really count.

And it doesn't mean you're really a murderer. It means that your fictional persona is the real you, and the obstructing of this real you by real-life barriers contributes to the particularities of your identity.

[Luís Henrique]

I was playing tetris the other day, what dark "psychic truth" does that reveal? How about Portal? Mario Kart? Theme Hospital?

I suppose he was talking of things like "Second Life", or perhaps more generally of internet personas constructed to interact in forums, chat rooms, etc.

Oviously if you play Tetris you are a pervert who likes to insert pointy geometrical shapes into the symbolic uterus of bottom of the screen, but other than that I don't think sweeping psychologist conclusions are warranted here. :laugh:

Luís Henrique

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

To sum up the response everyone was giving to Zim - Zizek isn't talking about all games, he's talking about games where you take on an identity with certain kinds of styles or behaviors associated with it. IE Grand Theft Auto where you can steal cars, drive fast while listening to music and sexually assault hookers.

It is like the difference between Dungeons and Dragons and Chess. When I play chess, I am not fantasizing about being a godly master of either black or white pieces moving across a grid. When I play DnD, I am fantasizing about being a bosomy 19 year old half elf with 18 charisma, or a brooding 200 year old necromancer with a nasty attitude because there is something I find attractive about being that identity. I may never actually want to live that life, but there is something alluring about it, and so it is adopted in the context of the game.

I don't know if I'd state it as strongly as Zizek does here, but there is definitely the sense in which people make characters they want to inhabit and be while they play the game.

[Guardia Rossa]

Well, you're a hostile one, aren't you?

Given your hostile online personal, your "psychic truth" must be psychopathy.

Stop playing victim, Zim. The only victim in this thread is your keyboard.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Still, I disagree, there's something called empathy, which I lack for pixels*, but have too much for real humans. So, at least in what concerns offline gaming like GTA, Skyrim or Postal I do not agree at all.

*graphics and bad storytelling common in games contribute to that, because in movies I am sometimes affected by it despite being fiction.

I think it applies mostly to online where you interact with other real people.

[Invader Zim]

Stop playing victim, Zim.

You, old son, can't victimise anybody. And, nice to see you ignored my response and decided to troll.


The only victim in this thread is your keyboard.

Ooh. Burn.

Don't forget to breathe.

[Rafiq]

Still, I disagree, there's something called empathy, which I lack for pixels*, but have too much for real humans. So, at least in what concerns offline gaming like GTA, Skyrim or Postal I do not agree at all.

The point for Zizek is that this is irrelavent insofar as the point isn't that you're actually a horrible murderer in playing such games as such, but you're right in saying:


I think it applies mostly to online where you interact with other real people.

Indeed yes it does, but perhaps it could apply to other games. It depends on the degree of identity-investment in the character, the degree that which a fiction is constructed by the player.

In story-games, for example, it gets more ambiguous because they can mimic interactive movies. In which case, the fiction is the constructed story itself, so that it is not longer the player who is the pathological subject but the creator of the game.

Psychoanalysis is complex in that, in brutally murdering and killing someone in a game with such investment in your character, ti doesn't necessarily mean you actually want to do this in real life, it simply means that - like a dream, if you will - this is the truth of your psyche, and the limitations imposed on this psyche in everyday life (including 'empathy') is what defines the expression of your identity. The significance of the 'true psyche' is not so much that you become a hazardous liability, but that the suppression of its expression defines you in very complex ways, in the intricacies of everyday life. The relationship between how a thing's own limitation can sustain a thing, is a constantly reoccurring subject in Zizek's works.

[Thirsty Crow]

Does he mean in online gaming or in general?
He doesn't mean anything. The man is incapable of actually meaning something, either in speech or in writing, which other folks would recognize as "ah he meant X". It's a common strategy with the intellectual crowd, to sort of kind of put some proposition out there but preface it with "what if we read X as Y". It's inane but hey it sells books and lecture hall tickets.

(or I'm big shot bball manager infatuated with Judas Priest...hey at least the latest bit is somewhat true)



Or something like that, Žižek for me is undecipherable sometimes
That's because you're oh so low in the philosophical pecking order. Own up or learn to decipher the bullshit, no other way around.



I was playing tetris the other day, what dark "psychic truth" does that reveal? How about Portal? Mario Kart? Theme Hospital?

Theme Hospital? Oh. Oh.

You must fantasize about getting rid of the NHS and presiding over a section of the newly privatized healthcare. Sadist.

Not only sadist tho. You ruling class hack. And more epithets.

[Invader Zim]

Theme Hospital? Oh. Oh.

You must fantasize about getting rid of the NHS and presiding over a section of the newly privatized healthcare. Sadist.

Not only sadist tho. You ruling class hack. And more epithets.

Any more talk like that and you'll be straight for auto-autopsy.

[Guardia Rossa]

That's because you're oh so low in the philosophical pecking order. Own up or learn to decipher the bullshit, no other way around.

He is as undecipherable as Marx was undecipherable to me (And, honestly, still is to a large extent)

However, he makes sense: I don't know if I like his method, but I agree with his conclusions since I first saw his videos (Except on Immigrants).

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Psychoanalysis is complex in that, in brutally murdering and killing someone in a game with such investment in your character, ti doesn't necessarily mean you actually want to do this in real life, it simply means that - like a dream, if you will - this is the truth of your psyche, and the limitations imposed on this psyche in everyday life (including 'empathy') is what defines the expression of your identity. The significance of the 'true psyche' is not so much that you become a hazardous liability, but that the suppression of its expression defines you in very complex ways, in the intricacies of everyday life. The relationship between how a thing's own limitation can sustain a thing, is a constantly reoccurring subject in Zizek's works.

He says
...because of social constraints and so on...
empathy is not a social constraint.

It is a limitation, but everything is, it's a pointless exercise removing every constraint to find your 'true psyche' which btw there's not much info on what it is.

[Invader Zim]

There is no such thing as a "true psyche", human emotion and thought is dependent on circumstance. What we think is determined by mood, input and and various other factors. As noted the entire thesis falls as soon as we consider what it means if a person who adopts these violent personas players a different game with an entirely different, non-violent, persona -- why is one their "psychic truth" and not the other? And as others have noted, where does empathy fit into this? Or, for that matter, imagination? The entire thesis is obvious nonsense, even if it's is dressed up in wanky pseudo-intellectual trappings.

[Rafiq]

He says empathy is not a social constraint.

Yes, what many call empathy, which in our ecological age is assumed to be some pseudo ontological category "Uh, in your frontal lobe or something", interpreted in pseudo-evolutionary ways, is in fact a social constraint - its basis is social. What one 'empathizes' with and what one does not 'empathize' with, is social. In addition, the very nature of this 'empathy' and how it is expressed, is social. What does it mean to 'empathize' with something, why is this given almost a pseudo-theological character? because in our fake atheist age, one justifies their morality with 'empathy'. But this is thoroughly anti-Communist, for reasons I have gone into before. the diea that 'empathy' is some autonomous force, some essential thing, is wrong. Empathy is an umbrella term that refers to very banal phenomena - 'putting yourself in another's shoes'. Well putting yourself in another's shoes is an inevitable product of any society, and even 'psychopaths' do this. In order for a human to exist, they must mimic other humans, thereby relating themselves to them. Woe to all the 'psychopath' mongers, idiot scum like Kevin Dutton, in our degenerate anti-scientific age, who say otherwise.

Empathy is really a meaningless term. Someone's propensity to relate their experiences, to someone else's, there is nothing magical, or essential about that. One does this under the substrate of a pre-conceived moral framework, about what you ought to and not to do to someone, under the substrate of a standard of suffering (i.e. how and why something makes you suffer, humiliated, etc. is again social). That chemical processes in the brain are involved means nothing. There are neurochemical processes involved in everything you do, including typing on a computer. That doesn't mean anything.


it's a pointless exercise removing every constraint to find your 'true psyche'

What you do not understand, is that a 'true psyche' is what Marxists call a true abstraction, i.e. an abstraction that relates to essential processes in a causal way. Marx uses this logic quite often in Kapital - there is never a 'true', for example expression of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie in our society. But we use this 'true class distinction' in order to relate to how it is limited by other factors, and so on. So this is what we are dealing with. A true psyche, never exists by itself or in a vacuum, it is always entangled in other processes.


human emotion and thought is dependent on circumstance. What we think is determined by mood, input and and various other factors.

I think it's quite cute to see those alien to our tradition try to grasp at straws in trying to dismiss it. It reminds me of Roger Scruton in trying to confront certain French schools of thought. It is litertally actually cute. "Human emotion and thought is dependent on circumstance", he sais, so confident in banal conventional wisdoms. Think of it this way Zim, you are entering a classroom of graduate students dealing with a very complex matter, and you say "Human emotino and thought is dependent on circumstances". You so confidently repeat banalities and truisms, and you think this is actually confronting the critical tehory at hand, or the notoin of 'true psyche'.

In fact you don't even know what 'true psyche' means. When Zizek uses the term, he is using it in a psychoanalytical context. You are not familiar with the latter, so you have no right to jump to conclusions about the former. The conclusion you jumped to, evidently, was that 'true psyche' means static psychological composition, because the word 'true' for your is misunderstand, probably because you lack rudimentary communication skills. In reality, when Zizek sais "true psyche", the dichotomy he is using IS NOT between 'static' and 'circumstantial' psyche, but between whether or not the video game persona, or the real-life gamer in question, is the real 'true psyche'. So Zizek is not saying "TRUE PSYCHES EXIST", he is saying, against the notion that the actual psychological character of a person is the person that in real life is a coward, feeble, and whatever, the TRUE psyche is that character expressed through the virtual - through a fiction.

I'm John Doe. I play world of Warcraft. In real life, I am meek, shy, cowardly and easily intimidated. But on world of wacraft, I am Lord Destructon3000, and my personality is confident, arrogant, strong, violent, powerful, and whatever. AGAINS the conventional notion that Lord Destructon3000 merely exists to compensate the 'true' psyche of the individual, which is cowardice, meekness, Zizek sais that in fact his true psyche, is expressed through Lord Destructon3000, and that the OBSTRUCTION of the expression of this psyche, in real-life, is what is responsible for the expression of the individual we know as cowardly, meek and shy.

That's the point. You have instead interpreted this as Zizek's argument being 'a true psyche exists, for X reason'. That is not his argument. For him, the 'true psyche' in this argumentative context rests upon the dichotomy between the fictional persona and the 'real life' persona. He claims that the former sais more about the individual in his psychic entirety, than the latter, which is merely the expression of the former plus the real life limitations to which.

As for notions that it is determined by 'mood', that is literally hilariously nonsense. As if mood is some separate determining force, i.e. "my mood was responsible". Well what is responsible for mood, then? The chemical processes in the brain which it is facilitated through? Of course, one can take drugs for mood. The reason we know chemistry doesn't determine it as such, is because one has to regularly take drugs for them, meaning that the 'real mood', i..e that derived from real psychological/social contexts, returns after the drug wears off. Such is the nature of psychiatric drugs as a whole. Human emotion and thought, is determined purely by social processes. Any pretense to tautology about 'human chemistry' assumes we are ontologically juxtaposing ourselves to other animals, but we aren't - the variance already exists in a human context, which means that these physiological processes are a given and remain unaltered historically.


As noted the entire thesis falls as soon as we consider what it means if a person who adopts these violent personas players a different game with an entirely different, non-violent, persona -- why is one their "psychic truth" and not the other?

As stated:

Zizek's reference to violence, was because this was the aspect which is controversial. Insofar as one adopts a persona, no, it doesn't always have to be violent. Zizek, in other works, uses the example of non-violent games like Second Life to illustrate the same point - games like Second Life, which are notorious for allowing players to adopt exaggerated personas, fantasy characters, that they wish they could be in real life and so on.

Regarding whether we have the same exact player doing this, you fail to understand what psychic truth actually entails and means. You can even make a better argument: What if a player, playing the same games, opts to make a new character, play as someone who is not violent at all, and so on? This is not unheard of.

And all the same it doesn't make a difference. That is because psychic processes are infinitely more complex than whether someone is a potential rapist, sadist and murder or not, the essential basis of psychic processes IS NOT based on how violent someone is, but various complex psycho-sexual, ideological, ETC. processes at hand. The expression of these processes can manfiest in various different ways. The nonsensical nature of your argument is that Zizek does the same with movies, to describe the 'psychic truth' of our society as a whole: Some movies are bloody, violent and gory, other movies are not. That literally means nothing, because the essential basis of 'psychic truth' is not grounded in whether something is violent or not, but what this violence means, etc.


And as others have noted, where does empathy fit into this? Or, for that matter, imagination?

Empathy and imagination, both beautiful words and hollow abstractions. "Where does, anger fit into this"? Why not ask that? It is literally the same thing. The by far, most profoundly ridiculous nugget here: Imagination. WHAT? As if imagination can exist in a vacuum, as if imagination is unbound by real worldly processes, as if the EXPRESSION of imagination, in its intricacies, is unrelated to the psychological processes psychoanalysts deal with. I mean, you literally take Olympic leaps over notions and concepts you have absolutely no degree of familiarity with, and it's pathetic. Imagination? Imagination, you say? What is this magical 'imagination' that somehow we are not taking into account? What is a fictional video game, if not something derived from a degree of being able to 'imagine' a story, an environment, an aesthetic, and whatever?

Imagination he sais. This is literally actually funny. Imagination. Imagination, the one factor we Marxists will never take into account - what are you, PR spokesperson for Disneyland? The nature of one's imagination, just as the nature of one's fantasies, are rational, follow rational psychological processes. You can cover your ears and disagree, no one cares, but the idea that this is somehow something we are not taking into account in our theoretical discourse, or something that subverts and underlies Lacnaian psychoanalysis is plainly and amply just wrong. Again, you can wallow in ignorance, no one cares, but as far as trying to argue that this is a 'thing' which remains unexplainable by us, you fail.

[Full Metal Bolshevik]

Yes, what many call empathy, which in our ecological age is assumed to be some pseudo ontological category "Uh, in your frontal lobe or something", interpreted in pseudo-evolutionary ways, is in fact a social constraint - its basis is social. What one 'empathizes' with and what one does not 'empathize' with, is social. In addition, the very nature of this 'empathy' and how it is expressed, is social. What does it mean to 'empathize' with something, why is this given almost a pseudo-theological character? because in our fake atheist age, one justifies their morality with 'empathy'. But this is thoroughly anti-Communist, for reasons I have gone into before. the diea that 'empathy' is some autonomous force, some essential thing, is wrong. Empathy is an umbrella term that refers to very banal phenomena - 'putting yourself in another's shoes'. Well putting yourself in another's shoes is an inevitable product of any society, and even 'psychopaths' do this. In order for a human to exist, they must mimic other humans, thereby relating themselves to them. Woe to all the 'psychopath' mongers, idiot scum like Kevin Dutton, in our degenerate anti-scientific age, who say otherwise.
Or maybe, just maybe, I don't do bad stuff to others because it makes ME feel bad and that sucks, there's nothing mystical about that.

Haven't read the rest of your post yet, just this part. (your posts are too big and I usually read it twice)

[Rafiq]

Before, I hope there is no misunderstanding about social constraint: Social constraint doesn't necessarily mean 'bad'.


Or maybe, just maybe, I don't do bad stuff to others because it makes ME feel bad and that sucks, there's nothing mystical about that, it's a real thing.

That it is a real thing, sais nothing about why that is.

Empathy-fetishism is thoroughly reactionary, it is the highpoint of rabid ecologist misanthropy. I question whether 'empathy' is real, insofar as it is has an essential grounding - which means, 'empathy' is not essential, there is no 'empathy' gene, in other words. Do people feel bad about torturing, causing suffering to others? Yes, but I contest the notion that this is because of an essential thing called 'empathy'.

There is also no such thing as 'non-empathy', so the word loses all meaning. Every single human action, is necessarily a social action, it is not as though we are born 'to ourselves' and we decide to 'have empathy' with others. That is nonsense. We are not born sufficient unto ourselves, our whole ego and identity has its basis in an order that extends far beyond us as individuals. All actions are made in relation to the existence of others. Even picking up a glass of water and drinking it is ultimately a social act. The reason empathy is reactionary, is because it accepts misanthropic, barbarous superstition: It presupposes it is even an option to 'be to oneself'. Conversely, communists recognize it is not possible to 'be to oneself', and that insofar as one does not treat others as he himself wants to be treated, he does this for reasons that relate to the social-symbolic order (i.e. one can quite easily respond by saying - I am not the same as others, I have exceptional abilities, or whatever you like). Our ecologist order, has made of humans animals, so that today the extent to which one has 'empathy' with a human, is the extent to which one has 'empathy' with a dog or a cat. When empathy is made into a separate ontological category, it is placed into a spectrum that includes 'non-empathy'. So it is reasonable that one is 'somewhat' emphatic and not 'overly empathetic' and so on. It is cold, it is disgusting, and it is the highpoint of bourgeois sadistic passive aggressiveness.

Communists don't have 'empathy'. They have solidarity. I've been over this several times - there is certainly a difference. Solidarity is exceptional. Empathy is a disgusting spectrum that would encourage us to 'empathize' with the enemy, to 'put ourselves in their shoes'. Thereby a framework wherein, the only way we justify not hurting each other as comrades, is by applying this same standard to the reactionaries and the class enemy. And there are true enemies. It is true that he who kills without also being ready to die is a coward. But this has little to do with 'empathy'.

Someone who is 'selfish' and 'egotistical', is also just as 100% 'empathetic', just in different ways, ways that are deemed immoral.

[Rudolf]

In the sense that this is the psychic truth of myself and that in real life, because of social constraints and so on, I’m not able to enact itThis is bullshit and not because Zizek uses games as an example when in reality he has little experience with them. No, it's bullshit because it's predicated on a shit individualism.

People most certainly do create personas. People do this online and in person. Yet this persona construction isn't a result of that individual's inherent inclinations it's a result of their relation to others. Further that there is no space where someone can create a persona without "social constraints".

Let's not count the social influences that go into the making of a person for the sake of argument. There still comes the problem of where is this space where one does this? As a rule people do not create spaces where they can construct a persona without 'social constraints' even if we technically allow its possibility (hell, i could create a virtual space for myself in unity engine and a bit of googling) yet generally people don't, instead they construct their personae (yes, plural) in spaces constructed by others. This is an important point.

Using games as the example, mainly due to the precedent. The obvious thing that Zizek misses is that games dont come from nowhere they are but a product of the labour of others. And this labour itself exists within a social context. Further the very game world restricts the user. As the developer i can push players into certain behaviours without them even being aware of it and based on the parameters of the space i create i go on to construct the virtual persona of the player. The thing with any space is that we are taught how to behave in it both directly and indirectly. Any persona construction that occurs is fundamentally subject to social constraints.


Do you know how stupid all this talk of persona construction indicating a 'true self' sounds when confronted with the fact that no i can't construct a persona i want in a virtual space precisely because the creators push you towards certain behaviours and then, to top it all off, in steps a philosopher saying it says alot about you. It just cements my suspicion of philosophers tbh with you.

I wonder what would be said about role players; multiple personalities? :laugh:

[Invader Zim]

I think it's quite cute to see those alien to our tradition try to grasp at straws in trying to dismiss it. It reminds me of Roger Scruton in trying to confront certain French schools of thought. It is litertally actually cute. "Human emotion and thought is dependent on circumstance", he sais, so confident in banal conventional wisdoms. Think of it this way Zim, you are entering a classroom of graduate students dealing with a very complex matter, and you say "Human emotino and thought is dependent on circumstances". You so confidently repeat banalities and truisms, and you think this is actually confronting the critical tehory at hand, or the notoin of 'true psyche'.

It is faintly amusing that you accuse me of talking in banalities and truisms, for over 100 words, without actually making any point of substance. What, precisely, is inaccurate or incorrect in posing, as a problem, the fact that an individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think? Zizek's hypothesis, which is presented as a thesis (when it isn't) ignores that.


he is using it in a psychoanalytical context. You are not familiar with the latter, so you have no right to jump to conclusions about the former.

Because, of course, disagreement must surely mean ignorance of the precepts.


The conclusion you jumped to, evidently, was that 'true psyche' means static psychological composition, because the word 'true' for your is misunderstand, probably because you lack rudimentary communication skills.

He states with no grasp of punctuation, syntax, elementary grammar or irony.

I also note that you fail to enlighten poor souls (according to you, people such as myself) with the true meaning of these terms. Woe is me.


In reality, when Zizek sais "true psyche", the dichotomy he is using IS NOT between 'static' and 'circumstantial' psyche, but between whether or not the video game persona, or the real-life gamer in question, is the real 'true psyche'. So Zizek is not saying "TRUE PSYCHES EXIST", he is saying, against the notion that the actual psychological character of a person is the person that in real life is a coward, feeble, and whatever, the TRUE psyche is that character expressed through the virtual - through a fiction.

This is extremely difficult to decipher. Did you mean:

"In reality, when Zizek says "true psyche", the dichotomy he is using IS NOT between the 'static' and the 'circumstantial' psyche, but between whether or not the video game persona and the real-life gamer in question is the real 'true psyche'. So Zizek is not saying "'true' psyches exist", rather he is suggesting (by contrast) that the actual psychological character of a person is the person: in real life that person is a coward, feeble, and whatever ; but the true [hidden] psyche is that character is revealed through the "virtual" -- fiction."

If so, you haven't addressed my point -- at all.


I'm John Doe. I play world of Warcraft. In real life, I am meek, shy, cowardly and easily intimidated. But on world of wacraft, I am Lord Destructon3000, and my personality is confident, arrogant, strong, violent, powerful, and whatever. AGAINS the conventional notion that Lord Destructon3000 merely exists to compensate the 'true' psyche of the individual, which is cowardice, meekness, Zizek sais that in fact his true psyche, is expressed through Lord Destructon3000, and that the OBSTRUCTION of the expression of this psyche, in real-life, is what is responsible for the expression of the individual we know as cowardly, meek and shy.

Again, you haven't addressed my point. Which is that sometimes John Doe may wish to inhabit the persona of Lord Destructon3000 on WoW. He may, after an hour, decide that he instead wants to play a different game and be a trader in [I]Elite Dangerous.



That's the point. You have instead interpreted this as Zizek's argument being 'a true psyche exists, for X reason'. That is not his argument.

Indeed it isn't, and I never claimed it was. You have constructed a strawman argument.



As for notions that it is determined by 'mood', that is literally hilariously nonsense.

What? As opposed to figuratively? or perhaps metaphorically?


As if mood is some separate determining force, i.e. "my mood was responsible". Well what is responsible for mood, then?

Of course mood can be responsible for behaviour. You mood can be entirely responsible for the manner in which you interact with someone, be it online or otherwise.


Well what is responsible for mood, then? The chemical processes in the brain which it is facilitated through? Of course, one can take drugs for mood. The reason we know chemistry doesn't determine it as such, is because one has to regularly take drugs for them, meaning that the 'real mood', i..e that derived from real psychological/social contexts, returns after the drug wears off. Such is the nature of psychiatric drugs as a whole. Human emotion and thought, is determined purely by social processes. Any pretense to tautology about 'human chemistry' assumes we are ontologically juxtaposing ourselves to other animals, but we aren't - the variance already exists in a human context, which means that these physiological processes are a given and remain unaltered historically.

This is a perfect example of your brand of straw man. Nobody has mentioned drugs and human chemistry, but you set this idea up and then proceed to break it down. What I'm talking about is the everyday change in moods that we all experience. For most of today I have been in a good mood because I received some welcome news and it was the first thing I read when I saw my emails. That influenced the way I interacted with people. Had I been pissed off that, again, would have influenced how I interacted with people.


Regarding whether we have the same exact player doing this, you fail to understand what psychic truth actually entails and means. You can even make a better argument: What if a player, playing the same games, opts to make a new character, play as someone who is not violent at all, and so on? This is not unheard of.

And all the same it doesn't make a difference. That is because psychic processes are infinitely more complex than whether someone is a potential rapist, sadist and murder or not, the essential basis of psychic processes IS NOT based on how violent someone is, but various complex psycho-sexual, ideological, ETC. processes at hand. The expression of these processes can manfiest in various different ways. The nonsensical nature of your argument is that Zizek does the same with movies, to describe the 'psychic truth' of our society as a whole: Some movies are bloody, violent and gory, other movies are not. That literally means nothing, because the essential basis of 'psychic truth' is not grounded in whether something is violent or not, but what this violence means, etc.


The irony of this is that your explanation does not, in fact, contradict the argument you have presented.


Empathy and imagination, both beautiful words and hollow abstractions.

Right...


"Where does, anger fit into this"? Why not ask that? It is literally the same thing.

No, it isn't.


The by far, most profoundly ridiculous nugget here: Imagination. WHAT? As if imagination can exist in a vacuum, as if imagination is unbound by real worldly processes, as if the EXPRESSION of imagination, in its intricacies, is unrelated to the psychological processes psychoanalysts deal with.

Of course imagination is grounded in the temporal and material world, which is why ideas are products of their time and place. However, that isn't what I was talking about. We can imagine what it might like to be something or someone else, that does not mean that we would wish it. I can imagine what rationing in Britain was like in 1944, that does not mean I would want to experience it.

[Rafiq]

What, precisely, is inaccurate or incorrect in posing, as a problem, the fact that an individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think?

Because it is totally tautological and irrelavent. The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial. You uncritically assume 'emotional states' are autonomous forces that influence individuals. Of course, if we abide by this logic, then sure, Zizek is ignoring how "emotinal states" infleunce individuals. But because Zizek is a psychoanalyst, a disicpline of Lacan, who has allocated so much work and thorough, critical investment in the processes you designate as resulting from magical processes called 'emotional states', he doesn't have to do this. For Zizek, who isn't such a clown as to think that 'emotional states' are some separate force, separate category which exists before the social-symbolic order, this is a non-problem, because nowhere in the intellectual sphere that Zizek deals with are such thorouhgly juvenile and simplistic notions allowed to be tolerated. You would amply and simply be laughed at for saying such a silly thing.

An 'individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think" is literally a FALSE proposition, because it begs the question: WHAT THE FUCK influences their purported emotional state in the first place? What is an 'emotional state', IN WHAT CONTEXT are 'emotional states' immersed in, what triggers them, and the list goes on. What you are saying is by far so silly - this is why those of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought, will never actually engage in a thorough debate about these matters, because they are literally bellow them. Which is why most of the time, we are content with them covering hteir ears and going "lalalalala there is nothing to be understood about the mater".

What you fail to understand is:


Zizek's hypothesis, which is presented as a thesis (when it isn't) ignores that.

For a Lacanian psychoanalyst like Zizek, the notion that 'emotional states' can be abstracted from the psychological processes that are of their concern, is a laughably stupid notion. So no, his thesis does not 'ignore' the 'infleunce' emotinal states have on 'hnow individauls think', anymore than it 'ignores' how astrology does. It is an amply false assumption that 'emotional states', some irrational process that comes out nowhere, influence ANYTHING, because for an intellectual like Zizek, 'emotional states' and psychological processes are congruent, they do not exist separately from each other. Thereby, what you call ' emotional states' is nothing more than a worthless and hollow abstraction, from real psychological processes. Like "sadness", "anger", "joy", these do not determine or influence anything, all of these are immersed in real psychological contexts and their expression is contingent upon real psychological processes. So the 'problem' you present is in fact a false one, a totally false one, insofar as your assumptions regarding 'emotional states' are groundless one. It is you who must present to us, those immersed in the same tradition as Zizek, why we should take 'emotional states' seriously as some separate category.

I mean what is amply pathetic, abominable even, is the fact that - you make it as though THE essential dimension of emotions is being ignored. That is to say, the key psycho-sexual processes at hand, as though this 'ignores' some unknowable domain of mystery called 'emotional states'. What you say is literally so silly - AS YOU ARE USING THE TERM, and I emphasize this qualification, 'emotional states' simply do not exist.

You don't have an iota of familiarity of the topics at hand in relation to Zizek, the least you could do, out of the most elementary modesty, is recognize this.


Because, of course, disagreement must surely mean ignorance of the precepts.

In fact you are in no position to make pretenses to rational disagerement in the first place. YOU ARE ignorant of the context that which the term 'psychic truth' is being used, you ARE ignorant about what Zizek means by this, what he - if you will - designates. if you are unfamilair with psychoanalysis, then you are unfamiliar with Zizek's use of the term 'psychic truth', because these processes are precisely what he is dealing with.


He states with no grasp of punctuation, syntax, elementary grammar or irony.

No, the qualifications for what constitutes rudimentary communication skills has nothing to do with how well you can communicate in FORMAL terms, i.e. how well you can pass stupid and trivial rules that don't really even matter outside of professional contexts - what constitutes rudimentary communication skills, is the ability to actually articulate and comprehend ideas being conveyed as they are intended to. You have failed to do this, because your approach Zizek's argument as if the essential basis of it was to show that "psychic truths are real". Any idiot who has paid just an iota of attention to the context in which Zizek used the term 'psychic truth' is that he was simply RESPONDING to what was already presupposed as a dichotomy - 'the real psychic truth'. The controversy derives from where he places this 'psychic truth', in relation to where others place it, not whether it fucking exists or not.

But for the record, Zim, the fact of the matter is that it doesn't take much to have decent punctuation. It really doesn't take shit to do this. You literally, STUBBORNLY DISMISS things because they do not fit these trivial formal qualifications. You cannot grasp the notion that the substance of an idea is irreducible to its 'formal' presentation in professional contexts. That is because your only relationship to intellectual spheres in general, is grounded in your professional background. And like most professionals, you allow formalities to do the thinking for you - they are your crutch. That doesn't work here, however, so literally - just stop.


I also note that you fail to enlighten poor souls (according to you, people such as myself) with the true meaning of these terms.

That assumes I have the power to force you to actually think about things. I don't. You can cover your ears and scream all you like, I can't do anything. That's why this isn't for you, it's for everyone else.


If so, you haven't addressed my point -- at all.

Well let's actually assess why you claim this is:

in real life that person is a coward, feeble, and whatever

No, it clearly isn't imprecise, if you had rudimentary communication skills, you would understand that saying 'coward, feeble and whatever' in this context, clearly insinuates that: Whatever = all other characteristics associated with weakness, cowardice, things that are juxtaposed to the online identity of Lord Destructon3000, i.e. personal traits that people would emphasize in contrast to the online identity.

but the true [hidden] psyche is that character is revealed through the "virtual" -- fiction."

The psyche is incidentally hidden, why emphasize this? The point is that, THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM Zizek is dealing with, is that: John Doe compensates for his 'true nature', as a coward, as a meek weakling, by taking on the persona of Lord Destructon3000. This is a common theme that is regularly expressed through popular culture, it is literally a TROPE as such, a societal archetype. That is what Zizek is dealing with. The fact that I actually have to go into such depth explaining what should automatically be a truism, is actually saddening (but who knows, maybe my 'emotional state' is responsible for that).

I don't buy hat anyway though, because I know you're literally just trying to fuck around so you can ignore the argument at hand. I very clearly DID respond and address your argument, very thoroughly and concisely at that.


Again, you haven't addressed my point. Which is that sometimes John Doe may wish to inhabit the persona of Lord Destructon3000 on WoW. He may, after an hour, decide that he instead wants to play a different game and be a trader in [I]Elite Dangerous.

You accuse me of not addressing your argument, when in fact, I LITERALLY ADDRESSED THIS EXACT ARGUMENT:

As stated:

[Zizek's reference to violence, was because this was the aspect which is controversial. Insofar as one adopts a persona, no, it doesn't always have to be violent. Zizek, in other works, uses the example of non-violent games like Second Life to illustrate the same point - games like Second Life, which are notorious for allowing players to adopt exaggerated personas, fantasy characters, that they wish they could be in real life and so on.]

Regarding whether we have the same exact player doing this, you fail to understand what psychic truth actually entails and means. You can even make a better argument: What if a player, playing the same games, opts to make a new character, play as someone who is not violent at all, and so on? This is not unheard of.

And all the same it doesn't make a difference. That is because psychic processes are infinitely more complex than whether someone is a potential rapist, sadist and murder or not, the essential basis of psychic processes IS NOT based on how violent someone is, but various complex psycho-sexual, ideological, ETC. processes at hand. The expression of these processes can manfiest in various different ways. The nonsensical nature of your argument is that Zizek does the same with movies, to describe the 'psychic truth' of our society as a whole: Some movies are bloody, violent and gory, other movies are not. That literally means nothing, because the essential basis of 'psychic truth' is not grounded in whether something is violent or not, but what this violence means, etc.

So not only did I address this argument, I even went as far as saying: Why not simply make the argument that - "What if John Doe makes another character in World of Warcraft that is entirely different?", and this argument would work the same way. The point, however, is that your argument is irrelavent, because the essential basis of psychic processes is not how 'violent' someone is, psychic truth can be expressed in various different ways, various different fantasies. The example I used was movies: Zizek claims movies reveal the 'psychic truth', ideologically, of our society. There are many movies which are bloody and violent. Others are not.

So is this comparison with movies not identical with your argument? To every violent movie, THERE IS a 'Elite Dangerous'. that doesn't make a difference as far as how both of these movies, reveal certain truths about our society. These truths are merely expressed in different ways. Likewise, if John Doe is playing Elite Dangerous as a trader, that would entail a different evaluation, with very careful consideration of the level of fictional engagement, fantasy (I don't know shit about such a game), in relation to the player's identity and psyche. Upon doing so, you would be able to find consistency in how he behaves in WoW, with how he behaves in Elite Dangerous as a non-violent trader, in relation to his psychological processes. Just as you can by demonstrating how a Romantic movie, as well as a bloody and violent movie, come from the same ideological context.

I really don't know what to say to you if you can't understand this.


Indeed it isn't, and I never claimed it was. You have constructed a strawman argument

Why then do you approach Zizek's argument by saying 'psychic truths' don't exist, going off about how 'it's circumstantial'. Clearly you conceived Zizek's notion of 'psychic truth' as a pretense to some static and unchanging 'truth' which is non-circumstantial. I claim you are wrong, Zizek's usage of the term is much more modest - against the notion that the 'real persona' is the real life persona, he is saying the fictional persona sais much more about the psychological composition of the individual, then what one could decipher from his real life actions. Because as a Lacanian, he purposes: Truth has the structure of a fiction (i.e. fictions are better at conveying societal truths than reality).

So "psychic truth" literally is interchangeable with 'real psychological composition' or whatever you want. Zizek would say, if you are Lord Destructon3000 on world of warcraft, THE TRUE YOU, is Lord Destructon3000, that's the true nature of your psyche, given freedom where it is constrained by reality.

The sad part about this is that we haven't even touched upon debating Zizek. This is purely an empirical matter right now, which is showing what Zizek was trying to say. Like you haven't even criticized him properly. It's so depressing.


What? As opposed to figuratively? or perhaps metaphorically?

Culturally, individuals use the term 'literally' to place emphasis on a designation when qualifying something, you know, 'that was literally so fucking cool'. The fact that I am mixing the casual use of language, with theoretically complex matters, that offends you? I don't care.

The fact that I am using language in a non-formal manner, is literally just as realvent as the fact that I don't ahve some formal pendant of legitimacy, some degree and so on. Those are significations of power, that are outside the context of (the use of) universal reason. Amply leave those at home, while on Revleft. We Communists don't play such games.


You mood can be entirely responsible for the manner in which you interact with someone, be it online or otherwise.

What is responsible for my mood, in relation to how I interact with someone? You can't answer this. So I infer, that you assume this is because moods are 'chemical' processes, they must have some causal properties.


Had I been pissed off that, again, would have influenced how I interacted with people.

So why weren't you pissed off? Magic? Or is it, in fact, according to you, the result of chemical or biological processes independent of the context they are immersed in?

You can either make pretenses to magic, or you can admit I wasn't in fact dealing with a straw man at all. Your pick.


The irony of this is that your explanation does not, in fact, contradict the argument you have presented.

I don't need to contradict it because it is true that players can be entirely different in entirely different games, or even in the same game. People make different characters and act differently all the time. When I was younger, while playing Oblivion, sometimes I would go on mass killing sprees and sometimes I was a beggar who decided to work their way up. that is not controversial. I am telling you, however, that this is irrelevant to the argument at hand. The point is, dealing with the very real phenomena of there being a disparity between how people act in a video game, in a fictional persona, and how they act in real life. This disparity is clearly pathological for anyone familiar with video games. Look up Second Life! it depends on the degree that which one is engaged in their fictional, virtual identity. For example in a game like Pong, or super mario, it's different, becuase this is not 'virtual' space as such, in the context of how Zizek is using it.


No, it isn't.

Good one.

In fact, it is. So is asking "Where does one's capacity for humor fit in", or "where does one's sense of morality fit in". I contest the notoin that these are so unrelated that they are worthy of being treated as separate categories with separate causal properties.


We can imagine what it might like to be something or someone else, that does not mean that we would wish it.

You're right, because as I stated, the point isn't that if one goes on killing sprees in Oblivion, they actually want to. That's not the point - these things are treated, in a similar way that fantasy (psychological fantasy) is treated. So the point is the very nature of what you imagine, what you desire only in imagination, sais a lot about your psyche. It has nothing to do with a hazardous warning that a player who is violent in video games, will potentially be violent in real life. That is far, far beyond the point at hand. The point is that how one acts in the video game, in disparity with their real life persona, acting 'tough' where they otherwise wouldn't, that is the real psychic truth of them, and that the expression of their personality in real life, is the product of the obstruction of this psychic truth by real-world limitations.

When one 'imagines' something, they are never outside of that being imagined. So for example, imagining yourself living in 1944, of course it doesn't mean you want to live in 1944. But it could mean a plethora of other things, regarding what you are doing, why, ETC. in relation to your psychic truth. That is the point. Let's say someone sais "I want to imagine myself as being a rapist". Of course it doesn't mean you're a rapist. The point however is that the very nature of how you imagine this, is deeply pathological, because it sais a lot about how you conceive and approach rape, and so on. This is why if a victim of rape were to do this, their 'imagined' role as a rapist, would be different probably from someone who has never been raped. This is the nature of the phenomena we are dealing with.

[Rafiq]

People most certainly do create personas. People do this online and in person. Yet this persona construction isn't a result of that individual's inherent inclinations it's a result of their relation to others.

Don't be silly. No one, not Zizek has ever insinuated otherwise. This is the whole point of Lacan's symbolic order, it is NEVER a result of an individual unto himself as somehow constituting a self-sufficient existence. But Zizek is already presupposing that the nature of an individual and their inherent inclinations, is a product of their relationship to others.


Further that there is no space where someone can create a persona without "social constraints".

In Oblivion I can do many things I can't do in real life. That's all he means by 'social constraints'. You're in an entirely different ballpark here.

We are Marxists. We know the social dimension. Zizek (Lacan) is dealing with the psychological dimension, at a deeper level. So he is not substituting a materialist analysis for something else, he is merely applying this materialist analysis to the dimension of the psyche, following Lacan. No materialist assessment of the social, without assessing the psychological, can properly be complete, because it is through the psychological that social processes are reproduced, sustained.

[Rudolf]

Don't be silly. No one, not Zizek has ever insinuated otherwise. Maybe the issue is out of context quotes as i've not done the wider reading that evidently others have.




In Oblivion I can do many things I can't do in real life. That's all he means by 'social constraints'. You're in an entirely different ballpark here.

I dont understand how i am in a different ballpark. The reverse is also true. There are things you can't do in a game that you can do in real life. There are also things you can't do in either for similar reasons such as murdering children in skyrim. I don't understand how one instance is a social constraint, i.e. murdering children irl but another isn't. It's obvious the instance in skyrim is the same thing as irl. It just seems like a distinction is being made for the sake of it.


I think the question to be asked is who is constructing the persona, is it the occupier of a fictional space or its creator? I lean to the latter as it seems to be the whole point of creating it in the first place.


I think there is some merit in claiming that some people try to pursue their self through fiction but in there as well as in the outside world this pursuit is wrought with the same kind of compromise. The irony, i think, is that it's not possible in the virtual world in a similar way it's not possible in the real world.

[Invader Zim]

Actually, you've caused me to rethink my position with just one comment out of all those otherwise portentous, repetitive, insult laden, fallacy riddled, but utterly empty statements which singularly fail to address the point I made:


We Communists don't play such games.

You aren't a Communist. It is quite obvious that you utilise Revleft as your very own MMORPG, and rafiq the Communist is your persona in that game. That persona is a shrill, hostile to the point of and suffers disturbing delusions of grandeur. Doubtless you behave very differently outside of this virtual space, no doubt because you rightly fear being thumped. So, maybe as Zizek does have a point after all, and this game persona you have constructed is a window to your psychic truth?

[Rafiq]

You aren't a Communist.

One cannot be a Communist in practice today, one can only hope to build a Communist movement. But yes, I am a Communist, spiritually, and ideologically, yes I am a Communist, on my life and in my bones. That does not matter in this context, because no one should simply 'take my word' for it, because that doesn't matter -that's something that exists outside the context of this internet forum. Saying I'm "not a Communist" is totally baseless, because you do not provide real qualifications for what it means to be a Communist, and furthermore you do not justify those qualifications.

One happens to deeply value this forum, because unlike other forums, it provides a common standard necessary for a community of Leftists. Revleft, despite all of its flaws, is truly a platform of what Zizek refers to (drawing from Kant) the public utilisation of reason.


That persona is a shrill, hostile

Mercilessness and hostility toward ideas, ideas which I myself could have (i.e. and subsequently, need to justify not having) is not a crime. That you take this personally is not my problem.


Doubtless you behave very differently outside of this virtual space, no doubt because you rightly fear being thumped.

Actually, Zim, I was literlaly going to use this example, i.e. I was literally going to say this myself to illustrate Zizek's point, I was literally going to say "Zim, you should at least be clever enough to apply this to Rafiq" but I didn't because it was just a cheap jab.

In all honesty, and of course, my word counts for very little, surprisingly enough you are wrong - I do act this way in real life, if there is a proper real equivalent. Of course, I try to do my best to be polite, in virtually every formal contexts. But honestly no, if you met me in real life, you would very much, very easily be able to decipher who I was on this forum. There is no disparity. Of course, I do have something of a personal life, which means, sometimes I have to do things that are demanded outside of the context of an internet forum.

But nevermind that. You claim it is 'plainly obvious'. But let's pretend for a moment you were correct, that this is nothing more than a game for me, and that in real life I do not identify with the ideas I bring to this forum (which as far as my life gioes doesn't even make sense). It would not make a difference as far as your inability to actually engage me, it would not make a difference, for all anyone cares I could be a space alien trying to brainwash everyone. You don't have anything beyond my posts, and it is the posts themselves you have to respond to - any baseless inferences you would like to make about me on a personal level, well, you can have at it - but that isn't a substitute for actually engaging me (or my 'online persona').

So I could perfectly fit your description, while at the same time you would still be infinitely wrong, because you would not be able to locate what my 'real beliefs' are that which are being kept hidden and above my 'fake' position. Meaning? If I don't actually take this seriously, that's very well if you want to pretend this, but because you don't have any idea of what the 'real beliefs' are, all you have to work with is what I post. So in effect, either way Zim, you can't worm your way out of this.


So, maybe as Zizek does have a point after all, and this game persona you have constructed is a window to your psychic truth?

Indeed it is true, only this isn't a game. You make it seem like you've exposed me or something. Rafiq on Revleft probably IS a window to my 'psychic truth' as an individual. The difference is that, I am conscious of this truth, I embrace it, I do not deny this. That I am not always behaving in the manner I am here, in real life, IS because of the intricacies of everyday life, i.e. you know, actually having friends (surprisingly, I do have those), being polite to strangers who I can be in actual proximity with, and so on.

That is because in real life, you get more from an individual than just what would be equivilent to their 'posts' on Revleft. So in fact one can imagine a real life context where Zim, Rafiq, and even 870, all laugh this off with a beer. That is irrelevant however, because I don't know, personally, and I don't care to know Zim, or 870, my only relation to them is what they post on an online forum with an actual, real context.

It is your ideas I am attacking, in their most pure expression - written words.

[Rafiq]

I don't understand how one instance is a social constraint, i.e. murdering children irl but another isn't. It's obvious the instance in skyrim is the same thing as irl. It just seems like a distinction is being made for the sake of it.

Basically the point is that you won't have any real life repercussions for doing such things in Skyrim. That's what is meant by limitations. Not to say that people would do this if they wouldn't go to jail for it, but that even something like guilt, the inability to hurt people in proximity, etc. are 'limitations' in Zizek's use of the word.

Zizek uses the example of rape, torture, etc. - which are obviously physically possible in real life, but he still sees that there are real life constrains to the enactment of these things, even beyond fear of punishment.

[Invader Zim]

So in effect, either way Zim, you can't worm your way out of this.

Worm my way out of what? Despite all your verbiage in this thread, you have utterly failed to make any point worthy of serious retort. In my folly I gave you chance earlier, but what I got back wasn't worth my time. For instance rather than actually address the point about emotional states you:

1. Resort to unsubstantiated dismissal.

"Because it is totally tautological and irrelavent."

"But because Zizek is a psychoanalyst, a disicpline of Lacan, who has allocated so much work and thorough, critical investment in the processes you designate as resulting from magical processes called 'emotional states', he doesn't have to do this."

"What you are saying is by far so silly - this is why those of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought, will never actually engage in a thorough debate about these matters,"

"Which is why most of the time, we are content with them covering hteir ears and going "lalalalala there is nothing to be understood about the mater"."


2. Produce statements which literally (note the correct use of the word) don't say anything, they are literally meaningless:

"The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial."

3. Produce strawman arguments:

"You uncritically assume 'emotional states' are autonomous forces that influence individuals. Of course, if we abide by this logic, then sure, Zizek is ignoring how "emotinal states" infleunce individuals."

"For Zizek, who isn't such a clown as to think that 'emotional states' are some separate force, separate category which exists before the social-symbolic order, this is a non-problem, because nowhere in the intellectual sphere that Zizek deals with are such thorouhgly juvenile and simplistic notions allowed to be tolerated."

4. Resort to insult:

"You would amply and simply be laughed at for saying such a silly thing."

"because they are literally bellow them."



5. Produce non-sequiturs:

"An 'individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think" is literally a FALSE proposition, [I]because it begs the question"

6. Deflect with irrelevent questions"WHAT THE FUCK influences their purported emotional state in the first place? What is an 'emotional state', IN WHAT CONTEXT are 'emotional states' immersed in, what triggers them, and the list goes on."

-----

I could literally (again: note the correct use of the term) do that for your entire post.

[Rafiq]

I'm actually going to through with this. I cannot flame you, because I have been warned multiple times not to, in addition, in the spirit of respectful discussion, I at least tried to be a bit polite here, but that you take this for weakness is amusing. Of course, I never wanted to flame anyone. It reminds me of what Lenin said in a speech regarding poland (to make a bad analogy, whatever):

When, in January, we offered Poland peace terms that were most favourable to her and most unfavourable to us, the diplomatists of all lands interpreted the fact in their own way: since the Bolsheviks were making such tremendous concessions, that should be taken to mean that they were very weak. This was merely more confirmation of bourgeois diplomacy’s inability to understand the methods employed by our new diplomacy, that of direct and frank declarations.

Likewise, every time I attempt to frankly and directly approach people, without any such poison and filth, they take it for weakness, they articulate this in the context of their own perceptions of hierarchies of (intellectual) power. That expains my previous history of flaming so much. But again, I will not flame, for I promised and vowed I would not anymore.

It's okay though, Zim doesn't know how to use his head outside of formal, and professional contexts, so wherever something isn't constructed so as to signify relations of power outside of the public use of reason, he is simply offended. What? How dare the dirty plebs critically think about things outside of intellectual formats appropriate for professional contexts. How dare the peripheral intellectual pleb, use reason in such a way that is outside of this.

Alas, Zim thinks that taking several quotes out of context, and falsely qualifying them, is going to compensate for his inability to muster up a proper response. In fact I DEMAND you give me a proper response, you have absolutely no right, no right whatsoever, to post this way. No matter, it's not going to slide anyway. I'm gonna blow your post into itty bits in pieces, I'm going to demolish it. You literally think you have some panacea, formal outline that revokes Rafiq of any legitimacy whatsoever, it's so painfully pretentious, it's almost worth laughing about how you conduct yourself. Like REALLY? Are you kidding? "Oh, look at all these academic RULES Rafiq violates, I don't need to critical justify not only their importance, but the accusations themselves, hmph".

Like I give a fuck. Like I am so immersed in such formal hierarchies of truth outside of universal reason.


you have utterly failed to make any point worthy of serious retort.

The qualifications for what Zim deems to be a 'worthy point' is quite bellow the standards of actual intellectuals, so what do you hope to accomplish by admitting you are unable to properly qualify the arguments at hand? We already know this, Zim, that has been made very clear by every interaction I have had with you. Thanks for trying, though.


"Because it is totally tautological and irrelavent."

What Zim considers Unsubstantiated dismissal, which was thorouhgly DEFENDED IN A THOROGH MANNER - HE FUCKING MAKES IT AS THOUGH I LITERALLY JUST SAID THIS SINGLE SENTENCE:

Because it is totally tautological and irrelavent. The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial. You uncritically assume 'emotional states' are autonomous forces that influence individuals. Of course, if we abide by this logic, then sure, Zizek is ignoring how "emotinal states" infleunce individuals. But because Zizek is a psychoanalyst, a disicpline of Lacan, who has allocated so much work and thorough, critical investment in the processes you designate as resulting from magical processes called 'emotional states', he doesn't have to do this. For Zizek, who isn't such a clown as to think that 'emotional states' are some separate force, separate category which exists before the social-symbolic order, this is a non-problem, because nowhere in the intellectual sphere that Zizek deals with are such thorouhgly juvenile and simplistic notions allowed to be tolerated. You would amply and simply be laughed at for saying such a silly thing.

An 'individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think" is literally a FALSE proposition, because it begs the question: WHAT THE FUCK influences their purported emotional state in the first place? What is an 'emotional state', IN WHAT CONTEXT are 'emotional states' immersed in, what triggers them, and the list goes on. What you are saying is by far so silly - this is why those of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought, will never actually engage in a thorough debate about these matters, because they are literally bellow them. Which is why most of the time, we are content with them covering hteir ears and going "lalalalala there is nothing to be understood about the mater".

But no, Rafiq simply said "it is totally tautological and irrelevant" and didn't actually attempt to defend this. Everyone, you decide who is full of shit. You can't fucking call something a dismissal, if it is critically and thoroughly defended. I DIDN'T blindly dismiss what you said, I in a detailed, CONSIDERATE and THOROUGH matter DEFENDED why your argument was nonsense.


"But because Zizek is a psychoanalyst, a disicpline of Lacan, who has allocated so much work and thorough, critical investment in the processes you designate as resulting from magical processes called 'emotional states', he doesn't have to do this."

It is literally scandalous to abstract this from the context that which it belonged. You could fucking get away with this IF THIS IS ALL I SAID about the matter, but it isn't. Zim literally thinks like a computer from 1998. he literally can't even comprehend arguments as they are presented in a holistic manner, they are for him a series of unrelated, mechanical statements that must be judged and qualified with the most juvenile and simplistic 'fact or fiction' mindset that is only to be expected from your peripheral anglo-saxon philistine.


"Which is why most of the time, we are content with them covering hteir ears and going "lalalalala there is nothing to be understood about the mater"."

Is this outright, baseless dismissal as you claim? It is not, becasue this has been the basis of not only EVERY SINGLE approach to the continental field by the anglo-saxon philistines, it has defined the basis of your interaction with Rafiq. And there are very rationally justifiable reasons for this, which I have thoroughly gone over various times in the past - because anglo-saxon philistines have no practical reason for caring about any of this, they therefore see it as literally pure indecipherable bad poetry at best, and at worst, arbitrary spouts of 'meaningless' nonsense. Bourgeois ideologues have no practical inclination to critically understand such processes.


2. Produce statements which literally (note the correct use of the word) don't say anything, they are literally meaningless:

"The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial."

THIS IS FUCKING MEANINGLESS? ARE YOU LITERALLY SAYING THERE IS ACTUALLY, IN FACT, NO MEANING AT ALL BEING CONVEYED IN THE STATEMENT THAT: THE CAUSAL BASIS OF EMOTIONAL STATES IS NOT UNCONTROVERSIAL?

And then you DARE, you have the AUDACITY, to claim that my criticism of the anglo-saxon field as covering up its ears and going 'lalallaalla" is a BASELESS DISMISSAL? YOU DARE DO THIS?

I am literally shocked. Everyone, he literally cannot even articulate this statement: The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial, he literally cannot even decihper any attempted meaning at this statement, for him, there is no difference between that statement, and arbitrarily typing random words. This is how narrow, how ignorant, how deeply immersed in philistinism Zim is.

He LITERALLY is incapable of properly interpreting arguments, and properly deciphering ideas from phrases. But just in case anyone has any doubts: OF COURES, the MEANING of this statement is that IN SAYING THAT EMOTIONAL STATES ARE A "FACTOR" ZIZEK IS NOT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT, YOU ASSUME THAT EMOTIONAL STATES ARE SOME SEPARATE FORCE WHICH HAS A DIFFERENT CAUSAL BASIS. I CONTEST this fucking notion, with all my heart, and I say that you are wrong, because the causal basis of emotional sates, is NOT uncontroversial, that is to say, emotional states exist in CONGRUENCY with these same psychological processes that are being dealt with here, by Zizek. So in fact, the notion that this phrase constitutes 'meaninglessness', is not only wrong, it is an affront to virtually any and all standards of reason itself. He LITERALLY claims I don't say "anything". In conceding his utter, and frankly juvenile ignorance Zim in effect DOES NOT CHALLENGE ME- he literally hands the fucking argument over on a silver platter.

So looking back, was it such a baseless and outrageous claim of mine, to have said that "Which is why most of the time, we are content with them covering their ears and going "lalalalala there is nothing to be understood about the mater"? Is this not EXACTLY what Zim is diong, contently and arrogantly assuming that there is nothing to be understood about the argument at hand, that it is pure arbitrarily conceived gibberish, a random and irrational conglomeration of words that 'does not say anything' and 'literally means nothing'? What he fails to understand is that among those of our tradition, sorry, IT DOES mean something. That yo udo not understand a language, only reflects your ignorance. What you do is no different than approaching some foreign language and saying that, because you do not understand it, it is meaningless. But it is CLEARLY a language, a tradition which people DO understand. If you want to bet on the notion that those of our tradition, while debating amongst each other, and so on, are just irrationally spouting arbitrarily conceived gibberish, go ahead, but eppur si muove, the tradition remains, moves. This is intellectual barbarism at it's finest, in fact, for the simple reason that it is an INSISTENCE on the lack of use of reason, an INSISTENCE on ignorance and unknowability.

Frankly the anti-intellectualism is ASTONISHING, even for you Zim. Congratulations for establishing a new precedent here.


"You uncritically assume 'emotional states' are autonomous forces that influence individuals. Of course, if we abide by this logic, then sure, Zizek is ignoring how "emotinal states" infleunce individuals."

This is a straw-man argument HOW? You claimed that Zizek is ignoring the propensity that which emotional states influence behavior. That assumes, in relation to Zizek's argument, that emotional states as you use the phrase, actually exist, i.e. are actually autonomous forces that influence individuals, outside of the processes that Zizek is outlining. YOU ARE THE ONE who claimed he was ignoring them, so in effect, YOU ARE saying there is a dimension Zizek is ignoring, and in the context of Zizek's understanding of the psychological processes at hand, you in effect DO insinuate that these emotional states are separate categories, forces, which influence individuals.


"For Zizek, who isn't such a clown as to think that 'emotional states' are some separate force, separate category which exists before the social-symbolic order, this is a non-problem, because nowhere in the intellectual sphere that Zizek deals with are such thorouhgly juvenile and simplistic notions allowed to be tolerated."

So WHAT ELSE IS MEANT when Zim talks about 'emotional states'? if you do not identify with the argument that they are separate forces, outside the grasp of Zizek here, then effectively saying that Zizek is not taking into account the fact that "emotional states influence individuals too" doesn't follow logically, because if emotions AREN'T separate causal forces, then you wouldn't treat them as such by saying "they influence individuals too" (insinuating Zizek is not taking this into account).

Do you not understand basic logic? How, professor?


4. Resort to insult

In fact Zim, this only outlines your own juvenile personal sensibilities. "Oh, he sayin' I ain't shit! Well damn!" - this is literally not even how students at my college act. And you are a professor. Holy fuck.


"You would amply and simply be laughed at for saying such a silly thing."

Well yes, you would. If you think that if you responded to Zizek (or, again, a room full of graduate students discussing the matter in-depth) directly by saying "You aren't taking into account emotional factors", he WOULD laugh at you. Do you honestly, in your mind, think otherwise? You don't think your argument is just a tad bit TOO FUCKING SIMPLISTIC and BELLOW the standards of theory that are being presented? And you call ME delusional?


5. Produce non-sequiturs:

"An 'individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think" is literally a FALSE proposition, [I]because it begs the question"

An 'individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think" is literally a FALSE proposition, [B]because it begs the question: WHAT THE FUCK influences their purported emotional state in the first place? What is an 'emotional state', IN WHAT CONTEXT are 'emotional states' immersed in, what triggers them, and the list goes on. What you are saying is by far so silly - this is why those of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought, will never actually engage in a thorough debate about these matters, because they are literally bellow them. Which is why most of the time, we are content with them covering their ears and going "lalalalala there is nothing to be understood about the mater".

Saying "an individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think", according to my argument, IS FALSE SIMPLY BECAUSE it is tautological, it does not justify itself, it assumes that 'emotional states' are sufficient unto themselves. The point is: WHERE DO THESE EMOTIONAL STATES come form, because as far as Zizek's argument is concerned, THERE IS NO DISTINCTION between them and psychological processes in general. HOW is this is a 'non-sequiturs' (and he calls me pretentious with how he talks) - in fact, my argument was perfectly clear - you say an individual's emotional state influences what they think, I say that is an irrelevant argument because it is tautological - emotional state's don't precede psychological processes, or more pertinently, they are not some separate force 'before' them. If that was the case, I ask you, WHAT IS THE BASIS of these emotional states, what DETERMINES them. Plain and simple, I QUESTIONED what you conceive as an 'emotional state', and you say this is not relevant. Anything bellow saying "Oh, Zim, my bad, you're right, turns out I didn't take 'emotionals states' into account" is to you arbitrary nonsense. For FUCK'S sake, it's like, holy shit, you cannot even imagine that you in fact - ARE WRONG.

If you cannot answer this, YOUR ARGUMENT is a false - why should I take seriously what you call 'emotional states' if you cannot even properly provide their causal basis? What IS an emotional state, WHERE does it come from? you expect me to accept your argument, without getting the necessary answer for this? Really? You expect, honestly, o just UNCRITICALLY accept your notion of "emotional states" as somehow being outside the processes Zizek is dealing with (something he is ignoring)? Are you literally so narrow minded that you cannot conceive the RELEVANCY of this demand? REALLY? How someone thinks in such a static, formalist way, it is so shocking really. Saying "emotional states" influence a person's thinking, is NO DIFFERENT than saying "their feelings" infelunce them. AS IF psychoanalysis does not deal with 'emotional states' and the dimensions, processes behind them, their contextual signifiance.

"emotions" have no history. They are contextual. They signify how a subject responds to a thing, in terms of degrees of behavior. THAT IS IT. Talking about 'emotional states' as something being overlooked, is nothing more than tautological, because it assumes 'emotional states' are not (tacitly) already accounted for by Zizek's arguments. They are. End of fucking story.

You are inclined to answer with pretenses to chemical and biological processes. BEFORE you could even say that, I responded to what is the inevitable argument you would make. And you accused me of making a straw man. It is SICKENING, honestly, the intellectual dishonesty you display.


6. Deflect with irrelevent questions"WHAT THE FUCK influences their purported emotional state in the first place? What is an 'emotional state', IN WHAT CONTEXT are 'emotional states' immersed in, what triggers them, and the list goes on."

You need to JUSTIFY why this is irrelevant as a question - it is OBVIOUSLY NOT fucking irrelevant, because the point is - you claim that 'emotional states' influence individuals, and that Zizek isn't taking this into account. I am literally, MODESTLY asking you to provide what you think is the causal basis of 'emotional states'. You have said NOTHING on the matter. The question is important, because ACCORDING to us, Zizek, Lacan, etc. - THE CAUSAL BASIS of 'emotional states' is congruent with the processes you accuse us of not including 'emotional states'. THAT is why I asked the fucking question, don't you DARE act like it is some separate concern. Like holy fuck, I am deflecting? Really? I am DEFLECTING? YOU ARE MAKING PRETENSES to knowing about a PHENOMENA which is somehow outside the consideration of Zizek here. So I am 'deflecting' because I am demanding you justify and defend the existence of this so-called 'separate' phenomena Zizek is ignoring? What RELEVANCY is there in saying "emotional states also influence people", what does that MEAN? Also coupled with WHAT? Why are you insinuating that emotions are 'outisde' the framework of analysis here, for Zizek? You have yet to justify this.

I'm waiting. We're all waiting. Please give them to us (your justifications) so we can get on with this without any more distractions.

[Rafiq]

Zim literally isolates and hones in on phrases taken out of context, before any consideration for their elaboration, based on how personally offended he is by him.

he literally sits on his computer, looks at a phrase with no regard for its critical context, shakes his head and goes "Oh my god, this is ridiculous, I can't tolerate this" and responds as though he's putting me in my place. It's so cute, really. He wants excuses to not confront the arguments at hand. Because he can't. My word on it, he truly can't. I'm literally so confident in his inability to address the arguments beyond accusing them of being 'meaningless' or 'irrelevant' (without justifying why, properly), that I put my word on this.

Like professor, what would you have of me? Want me to sit down, shut up, and quietly and uncritically imbibe your great, profound, sophisticated and theoretically complex insights?

It's like he's giving me a grade report, He doesn't have to justify himself, he's the authority, the professor, and I'm the student. This is how Zim, on this forum, conducts himself and I am not the first person to notice it.

Oh and just for the fuck of it:


again: note the correct use of the term

No, you are wrong, because there is a dimension of casual language you simply don't understand. People can, for example, say, "I literally knocked his shit to the moon" and whatever - of course one is not LITERALLY doing this, but saying 'literally' emphasizes the purported reality of the act, which could be, for example, humiliating someone in the context of an internet discussion.

It's like you're some pre-counterculture English professor who is infuriated by the street-talk of his students. Grow up. When I say "literally bellow them", the point is, they are LITERALLY, ACTUALLY, TRULY and REALLY bellow them. "Bellow them" is already insinuated to mean, bellow their standards, i.e. so that we can subsume the entirety of your theoretical discourse, but you can't do the same for ours. We know what you're talking about, but you don't know what we're talking about.

Take for example how white racists approach 'ebonics'. They rail against the improper use of English by blacks, but the true stupid ones are the whites who don't understand the complex intricacies of language as it is employed outside of their formal contexts. That is what I mean when I say you lack rudimentary communication skills - you are unable to properly assess intended meaning from statements. Like even if it violated whatever rules, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO KNOW what I'm talking about. And that's frankly all that matters. Actuallly this is why many upper middle class whites just don't know how to talk to black people, or even the poor in general. They are the truly stupid ones, they don't understand the extent of communication, outside of their formally defined rules.

[Invader Zim]

I'm actually going to through with this. I cannot flame you, because I have been warned multiple times not to, in addition, in the spirit of respectful discussion, I at least tried to be a bit polite here, but that you take this for weakness is amusing.

Where did I imply weakness. Quotes.



It's okay though, Zim doesn't know how to use his head outside of formal, and professional contexts, so wherever something isn't constructed so as to signify relations of power outside of the public use of reason, he is simply offended.

How, do you imagine, are personal comments like this, which explicitly contend that I am incapable of "us my head" outside of highly specific circumstances, is not an insult or a flame? The fact is, rafiq, you are incredibly arrogant, dismissive, patronising and condescending, and with an ego inflated way beyond the capacity of either your knowledge or intellect to carry.


How dare the dirty plebs critically think about things outside of intellectual formats appropriate for professional contexts.

As ever, this is you just ranting about implied snubs which are purely figments of your imagination.

This is one (of many) problem(s) with your posts, you don't argue with your opponents. Rather you argue against a series of ideas and positions that you have invented for them.



Alas, Zim thinks that taking several quotes out of context, and falsely qualifying them, is going to compensate for his inability to muster up a proper response.

A proper response to what? Your entire line of discussion strategy is precisely what I have claimed of it. You contend that by breaking down and unpicking your paragraph I have some how treated it unfairly, not on its own merits, that I have de-contextualised it. I haven't. What I claimed of your post is true. And I will provide an example presently.

But first, I will confess to having made one major error: I forgot to mention that your points are also riddled with circular reasoning. You uncritically present your interpretation of Zizek's view of how people behave works and use your interpretation of Zizek's view to justify it to those who level criticisms. It is rather like a Christian contending that the Bible says the Bible is true because the Bible says that the Bible is true. You utilise Zizek as justification of Zizek. Therefore, you don't need to respond to criticism of Zizek here because such critique is 'below' the level of thought. Why? Because Zizek. That's your response, but of course none of it actually addresses the point -- despite your repeated claims then and now that it does.

Following this crude intellectual faux pas, you then produce, as a follow up to this irrelevant and banal point, a series of questions, which you present as being some how important when they absolutely aren't. What you ask (by way of example), triggers these emotional responses? But the question is wholly beside the point. It is like a flat earther being asked a question about the curvature of the earth and responding, 'Oh yeah! Well were do the curves come from?!" As if the question debunks the point. It doesn't.



It is literally scandalous to abstract this from the context that which it belonged. You could fucking get away with this IF THIS IS ALL I SAID about the matter, but it isn't. Zim literally thinks like a computer from 1998. he literally can't even comprehend arguments as they are presented in a holistic manner, they are for him a series of unrelated, mechanical statements that must be judged and qualified with the most juvenile and simplistic 'fact or fiction' mindset that is only to be expected from your peripheral anglo-saxon philistine.

Pot, kettle black. Rather than judging my arguments as a whole you have broken them up, sentence by sentence, sometimes part-sentence by part sentence.


But to address the "point". Your statements are unconnected to the other points in the paragraph, because you have no grasp of paragraph construction or the logic involved in the formulation of a coherent argument.

At no point, for instance, do you in either paragraph actually demonstrate the tautology you claim of my point in the opening sentence of said paragraph. You next point is to claim that I think that the cause of emotional states in uncontroversial, but this has no connection to the previous point unless you were planning at some point linking this to either the supposed tautology or irrelevance, but you never do.

Moreover, you never actually justify that point. You do not, for example, quite my saying anything of the sort, nor do you ask for clarification. Instead you impose your binary view of the world on me. You see two possible options, you think one, I must therefore think the other. Sorry, but no. But, of course, even if I did think that emotional states are autonomous, at no point do you justify why that is a foolish point of view. And I could go on. The fact is that your paragraphs cannot be read as a single cohesive argument or substansive point made of multiple sub-points, because you do not produce such paragraphs. In your mind you may think that you are contructing arguments with clarity and poise, but in reality, they oscilate wildly between multiple themes and points.

You clearly have no idea how to formulate an argument, this is because you deal exclusively in streams of consciousness. This is also why your prose is so poor, to the point of sometimes being literally meaningless. And while we are on that subject:




[I]THIS IS FUCKING MEANINGLESS? ARE YOU LITERALLY SAYING THERE IS ACTUALLY, IN FACT, NO MEANING AT ALL BEING CONVEYED IN THE STATEMENT THAT: THE CAUSAL BASIS OF EMOTIONAL STATES IS NOT UNCONTROVERSIAL?

No, because you didn't write that. You wrote:

"The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial."

That IS a meaningless sentence. It lacks clear meaning because you confuse 'is' with 'are', incorrectly structure the order of the sentence (which you have corrected in your above rant), and mis-used your commas. As it stands, the point you are attempting to make is entirely unclear because there are several possible readings of it.

Now, I grasp that you think that punctuation, grammar and syntax are beneath you, but understand that they change the meaning of the sentence. Now that you have actually reversed the order and punctuation of the sentence it is possible to see what you were actually trying to say:

"The fact of the matter is, you assume that the causes of 'emotional states' are uncontroversial."

Of course, we both full well know that you will never admit to any for of error or fallability, so doubtless you will come up with some bullshit about it being entirely meaningful to someone who isn't an Anglo-Saxon Philistine. Boring.

[Rafiq]

Where did I imply weakness.

So, care to tell us what was implied from that glorified, utterly disrespectful and condescending grade report of yorus?


How, do you imagine, are personal comments like this, which explicitly contend that I am incapable of "us my head" outside of highly specific circumstances, is not an insult or a flame?

Because I don't simply insult people, I justify these perceived 'insults' in a rational manner. The fact of the matter is that it is true that you regularly attempt to compensate for your theoretical and intellectual poverty with such formalities. Virtually every real criticism you have leveled against me, somehow related to my poor use of grammar, or some other formal triviality. In fact the very nature of how you express your outrage over my posts, is because in your mind they anarchically violate pre-ordained conventional, yet uncritically accepted rules. I criticize you, and it's not my problem that you are so set in your ignorance that you perceive this as an inevitable attack on you personally - you could take these criticisms seriously and reflect upon them, engage in self-criticism, but you won't. that's not my problem. But the fact that this is possible, means no, I am not flaming or 'insulting' you, I am telling you as it is.


I forgot to mention that your points are also riddled with circular reasoning. You uncritically present your interpretation of Zizek's view of how people behave works and use your interpretation of Zizek's view to justify it to those who level criticisms. [...] You utilise Zizek as justification of Zizek. Therefore, you don't need to respond to criticism of Zizek here because such critique is 'below' the level of thought. Why? Because Zizek. That's your response, but of course none of it actually addresses the point -- despite your repeated claims then and now that it does.

No, I quite accurately recognized that this discussion had absolutely nothing to do with a serious criticism of Zizek as such, but what was very obviously arguably an empirical controversy over the nature of Zizek's argument:

The sad part about this is that we haven't even touched upon debating Zizek. This is purely an empirical matter right now, which is showing what Zizek was trying to say. Like you haven't even criticized him properly. It's so depressing.

The debate about the validity of Zizek's analysis, as far as you and I are concerned, has basically not even begun - what is being argued about, is what Zizek has allegedly 'overlooked', regarding 'emotional states', and the very substance of Zizek's arguments, which according to you, revolve around notions of 'psychic truth' as opposed to the 'circumstantial' nature of the psyche. I claimed that this is a false dichotomy and Zizek never stated this, and you accused me of making a straw-man because of it. That you think you have found something special, by pointing this out, when I already recognized it several posts beforehand, can be blamed on nothing more than your own confidence in thinking you don't have to seriously and critically confront my arguments in a mature manner. That is because Rafiq is no one, he is shit, he is nothing, who cares what he sais?

So you accuse me of circular reasoning, and this accusation is entirely baseless. I never said "Zizek is right, because Zizek said it". I said "Zizek meant this, because this is the only possible meaning, given certain considerations", etc. - my whole point is that you have mis-represented his argument. In order for me to defend his argument, this would have to be in an actual philosophic context, meaning, someone would have to actually understand Zizek before critiquing him. It is very possible. My criticisms of Zizek are quite refined, and substantial. They are formed from the basis of an actual understanding of his positions, however, which you clearly lack. If what you say is true, that "Zizek is right because it is Zizek" forms the basis of my defense of Zizek here, then you would have a hard time explaining why I can formulate a refined criticism of Zizek on certain matters. In fact, we have been over this - the theoretical practice of Zizek does not deal with empirical controversies, that is a matter of the natural scientists. It deals with the thinking of thought itself - consciousnesses of psychological and social processes. If one is not practically inclined to deal with these, of course they cannot be 'proven' to them. That is the difference between empirical truth, which is socially accessible to all observers through sensuous experience alone (regardless of, for example, class antagonism), and critical thought in general, accessible only to those who take a position in real social controversies they are already immersed in.

The question of whether Zizek is correct, well that would mean you would have to "play his game" (i.e. engage in the discourse he himself is engaged in). Neither you, nor Roger Scruton, nor philistines like Searle, can be forced to do this, just like many a Catholic clergymen couldn't be forced to accept scientific practices centuries ago (and the world would keep on moving). Until then, you have no right to criticize him or qualify him in general. It is literally an epistemological threshold you cannot cross out of righteous ignorance alone.

I have not been forced to defend Zizek in that manner yet, because you haven't even criticized him in such a way that emanates an elementary grasp of what he's trying to say.


What you ask (by way of example), triggers these emotional responses? But the question is wholly beside the point. It is like a flat earther being asked a question about the curvature of the earth and responding, 'Oh yeah! Well were do the curves come from?!" As if the question debunks the point. It doesn't.

Thankfully, there is nothing you can say which really surprises me anymore, but this, Zim, this almost did it for me. Are you actually joking at this point? Not only is the comparison completely fucking false, in fact, one CAN answer properly where the 'curves' come from, or moreover, why the Earth is round and not flat, and the origin of this roundness. So even if your comparison worked, which it does not, you still fail. The reason why it fails, utterly, is because me asking you where the emotions come from, derives from nothing more than the fact that Zizek is already assuming such emotions are congruent with the psychological processes he is outlining. I am merely demanding you justify the distinction you have made - in abstracting from these processes 'emotional states' and how Zizek is not properly addressing them. You know very well you are wrong, but you will not admit it.

Like let's actually assess this argument. A flat earther is provided evidence regarding hte curvature of the Earth. Okay, is this in any way, in ANY WAY comparable to the controversy at hand? It is not. Let's evaluate this, shall we?

A1: Flat Earther makes the empirical claim that the Earth is in fact flat.

A2: The response is that there is real empirical evidence that shows the curvature of the Earth.

A3: The flat Earther demands where this curvature came form.

You claim that this is comaprible to the following controversy:

B1: Zizek talks about the relationship between fictional and real-life personas, in relation to the psychic truth of both.

B2: Zim claims that he is not taking into account the fact that [I]emotional states also affect how individuals think.

B3: A defender of Zizek asks Zim what the causal basis of these emotional states are, and recognizes that it is already insinuated that the emotional states have an external causal basis, i.e. relating to biological or chemical factors.

I claim it is silly to introduce the factor of 'emotional states' as though they are somehow some separate, causal factor not already implicitly designated. That is quite different from the argument regarding the shape of the Earth, because the Flat Earther does not approach the curvature of the Earth in the same vein, the flath Earther does not say that introducing an argument about the curvature of the Earth, is treating curvature as some separate category, because the curvature of the Earth does not cause or determine anything. the curvature of the Earth is not a 'factor' which determines the shape of the Earth, it does not in fact determine anything. It is a property of the Earth, as a result of its specific shape, and furthermore, gravitational, physical processes that make the Earth the shape that it is.

But as far as your argument goes, you provide no equivalency to arguing for a spherical Earth. In the flat Earth debate, you show the flat earther the curvature of the Earth, to demonstrate that the Earth is in fact not flat. But in telling us that 'emotional states' influence how individuals think, you do not demonstrate anything, because in order for this to be relevant, a controversy regarding the basis of those emotional states, i.e. where they came from, and what causes them, would have to be in place. That is because Rafiq is in agreement that emotional states do in fact exist, are real. You have not accentuated this controversy, you merely pretend it doesn't exist and that it is irrelevant. If Zim and Rafiq are both in agreement regarding the causal basis of emotional states, then they would both agree (as far as we're concerned, because only Rafiq provides an explanation for their causal basis) they are immersed in psychological, ideological, social contexts, the same kinds of processes that Zizek is dealing with. if this was true, then it is in fact wrong to say that Zizek is not taking these into account. This is what you amply fail to understand - 'emotional states' ARE NOT a separate factor, which influences the individual, because emotions are congruent with the same psychic processes that psychoanalysts are dealing with.


Pot, kettle black. Rather than judging my arguments as a whole you have broken them up, sentence by sentence, sometimes part-sentence by part sentence.

In fact there is no comparison. That is because each and every single sentence I quote, deals with the entirety of your argument. I do not ignore anything, if I do not directly quote something, it is because the response is already given under a different quote. I take very seriously my opponent's arguments, which is why they easily provoke outrage. I do not give anything the benefit of the doubt, each and every claim you make is thoroughly and critically assessed, addressed in its entirety. Conversely, Zim, breaks up my post, de-contextualizes a few phrases, and accuses them of having no substance - as though they are all unrelated to each other. That is not comparable to how I address your arguments, in a way that connects and relates every single one of the little snippets to each other.

I am very careful about such things. You literally responded to a snip by saying "No, u wrong."



At no point, for instance, do you in either paragraph actually demonstrate the tautology you claim of my point in the opening sentence of said paragraph. You next point is to claim that I think that the cause of emotional states in uncontroversial, but this has no connection to the previous point unless you were planning at some point linking this to either the supposed tautology or irrelevance, but you never do.

The paragraph in question:

Because it is totally tautological and irrelavent. The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial. You uncritically assume 'emotional states' are autonomous forces that influence individuals. Of course, if we abide by this logic, then sure, Zizek is ignoring how "emotinal states" infleunce individuals. But because Zizek is a psychoanalyst, a disicpline of Lacan, who has allocated so much work and thorough, critical investment in the processes you designate as resulting from magical processes called 'emotional states', he doesn't have to do this. For Zizek, who isn't such a clown as to think that 'emotional states' are some separate force, separate category which exists before the social-symbolic order, this is a non-problem, because nowhere in the intellectual sphere that Zizek deals with are such thorouhgly juvenile and simplistic notions allowed to be tolerated. You would amply and simply be laughed at for saying such a silly thing.

So let's go through this. First I claim: Because it is totally tautological and irrelavent

I proceed to argue: The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial. You uncritically assume 'emotional states' are autonomous forces that influence individuals. Of course, if we abide by this logic, then sure, Zizek is ignoring how "emotional states" influence individuals

The tautology lies in stating 'emotional states determine how an individual thinks' in this context, because in not approaching 'emotional states' in a critical manner, you do not actually provide an argument against Zizek, you provide an argument that repeats itself: "Zizek's understanding of the psyche is not complete because it does not factor in the role of moods" - but you're not introducing a new factor here by saying this, because the contention that 'moods' are a separate factor in the first place is unsupported. So you create a tautological argument:

What, precisely, is inaccurate or incorrect in posing, as a problem, the fact that an individual's emotional state has a significant influence on what they think?

The point is simple, this is irrelevant and tautological, because you're literally just repeating yourself in the same sentence (in relation to Zizek's argument) - unless we assume that an individual's emotional state is some separate category (which you claim is a straw man), which I claim is wrong - you therefore have an irrelavent and tautological argument. If emotional states were a separate category, a determining force, then it wouldn't be tautological. So what makes it tautological and irrelavent, lies in the causal basis of emotional states (which determines whether they are some separate force).

I proceed:

But because Zizek is a psychoanalyst, a disicpline of Lacan, who has allocated so much work and thorough, critical investment in the processes you designate as resulting from magical processes called 'emotional states', he doesn't have to do this

The point being, Zizek engages very thoroughly with processes that involve emotion, and for him this is not controversial, because he has no reason to believe 'emotions' determine how individuals act - a Lacanian deals with the very context that which emotions are expressed. Then:

For Zizek, who isn't such a clown as to think that 'emotional states' are some separate force, separate category which exists before the social-symbolic order, this is a non-problem, because nowhere in the intellectual sphere that Zizek deals with are such thorouhgly juvenile and simplistic notions allowed to be tolerated.

Which means, it's not as though they are ignoring the existence of emotions, it would simply be silly to attribute them separate causal powers. An example is how, when confronted with the question "But what about morality?" Marx roared in laughter. The point of a critical theorist is to ask : Where does morality come from? Likewise, where does this emotion come form? For a Lacanian, the answer does away with the 'argument' - emotions can only exist within the context of the very psychological processes they are dealing with. Emotoins are contextual. Lacan can talk about why a man might be angry at his wife, for no apparent reason, etc. - the anger doesn't determine shit, there is a reason for it. It's so silly, because aggression, matters of 'happiness', etc. THESE ARE LITERALLY DIRECTLY dealt with by psychoanalysts. It is silly to say 'oh, you aren't taking into account how moods affect people's thinking'. Like what are you even talking about, honestly? Where the hell do moods come from? Your ass? They come from, are congruent with, the same processes that underlie someone's psyche.


you impose your binary view of the world on me.

Why are the critics of postmodernism as it is consciously apprehended in theory always the biggest culprits of postmodern silliness in practice? We will never know.


You see two possible options, you think one, I must therefore think the other. Sorry, but no.

Well no, I know your position, Zim - you, predictably, will say something like "Well, both biology and other factors have a say in it". The controversy is not about the 'degree' to which biology/chemistry is a causal basis for emotion, but whether this is even a valid causal category in the first place. I contest the notion that it is, but you claim to not identify with the notion that it is a valid causal category. You amply do not know how illogical the postmodern nonsense is either - the idea that one can be 'partially 'determined by chemical processes is an ontological fallacy, because it is dealing with variance in emotional processes IN RELATION to psychological processes. This variance, in this context, is not between humans and animals, but historical variance. Hence why I said:

The chemical processes in the brain which it is facilitated through? Of course, one can take drugs for mood. The reason we know chemistry doesn't determine it as such, is because one has to regularly take drugs for them, meaning that the 'real mood', i..e that derived from real psychological/social contexts, returns after the drug wears off. Such is the nature of psychiatric drugs as a whole

So it is false dichotomy. Yes ultimately these are chemical processes in their physical basis. But the chemical processes do not determine anything, any more than atomic ones do. They FACILITATE phenomena which is working at a higher level (the social). I've gone over this several times before. There is no 'in-between', because it relates to how one approaches the matter in the first place. Of course, speaking of binaries, why can't someone say "You want to create a binary between flat earth and spherical Earth, assuming it is one or the other". While we're making nonsense comparisons, that is.


But, of course, even if I did think that emotional states are autonomous, at no point do you justify why that is a foolish point of view.

Oh, I didn't do this in such a thorough manner, BECAUSE YOU ACCUSED ME OF CONSTRUCTING A STRAW MAN. You refused to identify with this argument. What I said before was:

As if mood is some separate determining force, i.e. "my mood was responsible". Well what is responsible for mood, then? The chemical processes in the brain which it is facilitated through? Of course, one can take drugs for mood. The reason we know chemistry doesn't determine it as such, is because one has to regularly take drugs for them, meaning that the 'real mood', i..e that derived from real psychological/social contexts, returns after the drug wears off. Such is the nature of psychiatric drugs as a whole. Human emotion and thought, is determined purely by social processes. Any pretense to tautology about 'human chemistry' assumes we are ontologically juxtaposing ourselves to other animals, but we aren't - the variance already exists in a human context, which means that these physiological processes are a given and remain unaltered historically.

In fact, I was hoping to go into more detail about this, after your response. What I got was this:

This is a perfect example of your brand of straw man. Nobody has mentioned drugs and human chemistry, but you set this idea up and then proceed to break it down.

So previously, you admitted I broke down the notion that 'moods', which as far as we're concerned is interchangeable with emotional states. That's what you said, not me. For that reason, it was insinuated that this is not controversial anymore. What is now controversial, is the highly nonsensical notion that 'emotional states' can be an external determining factor that isn't congruent with the same processes we're already talking about, immersed in the same context, etc.


Of course, we both full well know that you will never admit to any for of error or fallability, so doubtless you will come up with some bullshit about it being entirely meaningful to someone who isn't an Anglo-Saxon Philistine. Boring.

But your misinterpretation wasn't my fault, Zim, it is not my fault that you begin with the onset the assumption that "rafiq is full of shit, a stupid asshole", etc. - had you approached my arguments with the presupposition that I might actually be trying to say something, and that furthermore, you are inclined to know what this is, AT WORST you would have said "I don't exactly follow what you mean here" instead of jumping to the baseless conclusion that there was no intended meaning in the phrase.

"The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis, is uncontroversial."

Is quite easy to read without the academic, formalist haughtiness that defines your approach - "The fact of the matter is that you assume that 'emotional states', their causal basis that is, is uncontroversial." If you were unable to understand this (that this was the basis for 'their causal basis' having two commas surrounding it) it is because you lack basic communication skills in a non-academic, non-formal context. That isn't my fault, and certainly that isn't a proper basis to jump to the conclusion that "The statement is meaningless". Your approach to language is that it entails pre-conceived rules that must be strictly followed. Language is more complex than this, and I will not de-rail the thread into a debate about that.

[Luís Henrique]

He doesn't mean anything.

Of course he means, and it is even easy to understand.

Common sence has that weak people invent violent imaginary online personas for themselves, to overcompensate their real life weakness. Difficult to understand?

Zizek suggests that the opposite may be true: that people invent a social persona that is mild and agreeable, because this is necessary to survive, and revert to their "real" violent self when in the anonimity of the internet. Difficult to understand?

It is only difficult to understand if you have previously decided that you don't want to understand. Otherwise it is quite clear. Whether it is true or not, that's a different issue.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

We have our own charge of caricatural internet personas here in revleft; perusing the members list and taking a look on banned members may give us an insight of what we are talking about.

Here are some examples:

Marsella (http://www.revleft.com/vb/search.php?searchid=7461832)
Master Che (http://www.revleft.com/vb/search.php?searchid=7461823)
slim (http://www.revleft.com/vb/search.php?searchid=7461836)

Those would probably give material for good study cases about internet personas and their relation to the people who manage them. Was Master Che an insecure teenager living in the United States and pretending to be a Brazilian hardline Stalinist transexual revolutionary leader in the internet, or a Brazilian hardline Stalinist transexual revolutionary leader pretending to be an insecure teenager living in the United States in this thing we call "real life"?

Luís Henrique

[Бай Ганьо]

Common sence has that weak people invent violent imaginary online personas for themselves, to overcompensate their real life weakness. Difficult to understand?

Yes, difficult to understand, for someone who doesn't share your common sense.

[Luís Henrique]

Yes, difficult to understand, for someone who doesn't share your common sense.

So what's so difficult to understand?

Luís Henrique

[The Intransigent Faction]

Of course he means, and it is even easy to understand.


Common sense has that weak people invent violent imaginary online personas for themselves, to overcompensate their real life weakness. Difficult to understand?

Are they all "weak"? Why presume that, when they could be people who are openly assholes in day-to-day life, who simply translate that into virtual pseudo-reality?


Zizek suggests that the opposite may be true: that people invent a social persona that is mild and agreeable, because this is necessary to survive, and revert to their "real" violent self when in the anonimity of the internet. Difficult to understand?

Quite. Common sense actually tells us that our in-person persona is more aligned with who we really are than an identity constructed largely by and necessarily within pre-programmed parameters that limit our range of choices even more so than reality does (despite reality, too, placing its limits). We might want to just knock somebody out in a game, but be compelled by programming to kill them or be killed.


It is only difficult to understand if you have previously decided that you don't want to understand. Otherwise it is quite clear. Whether it is true or not, that's a different issue.[/QUOTE

Luís Henriqu

The idea that our virtual actions reveal our "psychic truth" is only really comprehensible if one accepts that such a notion means anything concrete. If you've already decided that we're all secretly sadists, then the concept makes sense. If "psychic truth" is highly malleable according to circumstance, then to say that one particular circumstance reveals our psychic truth isn't saying much of anything.

People are unquestionably bigger assholes on the internet, but that anonymity is used as a pressure valve doesn't explain where the pressure came from. It's easy to say that it came from inherent urges rooted in "who we really are", but it's not really that simple. The pressure comes from a clash between the systemically-promoted egoist mentality and the functionality of the system, for which fiction acts as a release that also conveniently reinforces the system itself.

[Luís Henrique]

I think people are confusing two very different things.

Take for instance:


The Earth is the centre of the Universe.

This is a false statement. It is also quite easy to understand.

You may of course complicate things by asking questions such as "but what is 'the Universe'?" or "what is a 'centre'?"

But anyone who is presented to the statement will "understand" it (what does it mean 'to understand'? Let's play the game!) Disagreeing with it is not the same as missing its meaning. Indeed, a proper disagreement can only come once we understand what it means. If we had no clue about its meaning, we wouldn't be able to decide whether it is true or false.

As it is, it seems that some people here think that saying things like "it isn't even false, it is meaningless" is a more radical way to disagree with a given statement. But this can only be true if the statement in case is thoroughly disassembled to demonstrate it has no actual content; reflex reactions of the kind "I don't understand it, so it must have no meaning" are mere demonstrations of irrationalism or anti-intellectualism.


Are they all "weak"? Why presume that, when they could be people who are openly assholes in day-to-day life, who simply translate that into virtual pseudo-reality?

This, for instance, is a take on Zizek's analysis truth-value, not of its understandability. It raises a third hypothesis, that the difference between real-life personas and internet personas (that common sence attributes, probably after Adler, to overcompensation, and Zizek thinks is due to a more genuine, less socially restrained internet behaviour) simply doesn't exist.


Common sense actually tells us that our in-person persona is more aligned with who we really are than an identity constructed largely by and necessarily within pre-programmed parameters that limit our range of choices even more so than reality does (despite reality, too, placing its limits). We might want to just knock somebody out in a game, but be compelled by programming to kill them or be killed.

Well, of course Zizek can be wrong about what is or is not common sence. But then we would say something like "Zizek thinks X is common sence, but it actually isn't - in fact, ~X is common sence". Definitely, not that "Zizek thinks that X is common sence, but this is a meaningless assertion, for in fact ~X is common sence".

Going for the complicated discussion, nobody forces us to participate in online games where we can only choose between killing or being killed. If we participate in them voluntarily, then this must say something about ourselves.


The idea that our virtual actions reveal our "psychic truth" is only really comprehensible if one accepts that such a notion means anything concrete.

Well, no.

The idea of a "psychic truth" is widespread; we do accept that it means something "concrete" (or abstract, but in a meaningful way). Whether we are critical of such a notion is a different issue. We can evidently say something like "there is no such thing as an individual psychic truth, something that the person is regardless of how she actually behaves". But this already implies making sence of the expression "psychic truth" - that hidden persona that is usually concealed, and only emerges in extraordinary circumstances (in vino veritas, the coward who reveals him/herself a hero in battle or that dies heroically for his/her right to be a coward, etc.) We know what this means, even if we don't believe it exists.


People are unquestionably bigger assholes on the internet, but that anonymity is used as a pressure valve doesn't explain where the pressure came from.

So you contradict yourself: there is, after all, a difference between our internet personas and our real life personas - that you attribute to anonimity.


It's easy to say that it came from inherent urges rooted in "who we really are", but it's not really that simple.

It isn't, because "what we really are" is a complicated concept. And it may well be that there is no such thing as "who we really are", and that we are merely a collection of different personas, who manifestate according to circumstances, no one of them being "truer" than each others. But we can only arrive at such conclusion if we start from the consideration that we do have different personas, which requires a working comprehension of the concept of "persona" (which, from what I have read from Zizek, seems to be his actual position; it is possible that he is being contradictory here, or merely Socratic).


The pressure comes from a clash between the systemically-promoted egoist mentality and the functionality of the system, for which fiction acts as a release that also conveniently reinforces the system itself.

I am actually inclined to agree with this, but it is a conclusion that requires an actual comprehension of how human psiché works, that cannot be predicated into the premise that common knowledge about human psyché is meaningless.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

It isn't, because "what we really are" is a complicated concept. And it may well be that there is no such thing as "who we really are", and that we are merely a collection of different personas, who manifestate according to circumstances, no one of them being "truer" than each others. But we can only arrive at such conclusion if we start from the consideration that we do have different personas, which requires a working comprehension of the concept of "persona" (which, from what I have read from Zizek, seems to be his actual position; it is possible that he is being contradictory here, or merely Socratic).

If I recall correctly, Zizek makes a whole point of this in discussing fictional characters and their plausibility. How is it possible that one person, say Shakespeare, can carry within himself so many personas, as to make them credible? How is there space for Hamlet, King Lear, McBeth, Romeo, who, all of them, strike us as real, complex personalities? How is it that one jar can contain within it so many other jars, none of which resembles a mere miniature? That would be only possible if personas aren't actually any "deep"; they must be mere surfaces, into which we mistakenly project a third dimension, as in a drawing in perspective.

Luís Henrique

[The Intransigent Faction]

So you contradict yourself: there is, after all, a difference between our internet personas and our real life personas - that you attribute to anonimity.

How odd, I said nothing like that. I said I don't attribute being an asshole to anonymity, because that would fail to address the deeper issue of why anonymity is used to engage in such behaviour (not realizing I had to spell out that this is not even universally done with anonymity...it's simply the case that some people do take the opportunity to be anonymous assholes, for reasons deeper than their simply being or thinking themselves to be anonymous). Let's grant that there's a strongly positive correlation between anonymity and certain behaviours. This would not prove the existence of a "persona" in the inherent sense suggested by an underlying "psychic truth"...merely that the environmental factor of anonymity, in combination with other determining factors in said environment, which go deeper, produced certain behaviours and a certain "persona" in a more tentative or conditional sense.

Sure, insofar as Zizek posits the destructive egoist showing his true self in Grand Theft Auto as the "psychic truth", we can disagree with that, but that doesn't bring any more coherence or justification to the positing of said destructive egoism as the "psychic truth" relative to another, less malevolent, persona, as others posting here have said. We may comprehend, for the sake of argument, this concept of a psychic truth, but when it's no more justified than another version of the psychic truth which could be posited just as well, the argument hinges on a concept so fluid as to be unreliable for either side and thus not particularly coherent in itself.

In short, insofar as a concept's meaning is accepted tentatively, it's rejection or acceptance is tentative. We can disagree with the idea as Zizek presents it, but not merely because it has a concrete meaning with which we disagree. We think "psychic truth" is a flimsy basis for an argument about human behaviour because it's a malleable enough idea to be used in support of mutually exclusive allegedly inherent "personas".

Let's call Zizek's "psychic truth" a psychic truth Z. One can disagree with psychic truth Z and yet if malleability of the psyche is itself taken as a psychic truth, (let's call it psychic truth M), agree with psychic truth M.
If we then say that there's something called a psychic truth, absent the modifiers Z or M...well, sure, but it's an abstract concept about which we can speak platitudes and little else.

By the way, I'm not blaming you, but you're a pain to quote. For some reason, when I click the quote button under your posts, I get a blank box. It's a minor inconvenience, really. I'm just wondering if it's characters in your name, or what.

[Luís Henrique]

This would not prove the existence of a "persona" in the inherent sense suggested by an underlying "psychic truth"...

To be sure, a "persona" cannot be based upon "psychic truth"; a "persona" is what human beings show to each other in social interactions. If there is a "true person" under the persona(s), then the persona(s) is or are the opposite of psychic truth; if there is no "psychic truth", then there are only personas. And if the "persona" is only a direct manifestation of one's "true self", then there is actually no "persona" at all.


Sure, insofar as Zizek posits the destructive egoist showing his true self in Grand Theft Auto as the "psychic truth", we can disagree with that, but that doesn't bring any more coherence or justification to the positing of said destructive egoism as the "psychic truth" relative to another, less malevolent, persona, as others posting here have said. We may comprehend, for the sake of argument, this concept of a psychic truth, but when it's no more justified than another version of the psychic truth which could be posited just as well, the argument hinges on a concept so fluid as to be unreliable for either side and thus not particularly coherent in itself.

Yeah, I think that Zizek's idea is highly debatable. But then the point is, the argument that he doesn't make sence or is ununderstandable doesn't help to debate them. Either Zizek's point stand, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it is either because the observed facts seem to contradict it, or because its internal structure is logically flawed. Both require adequate demonstration; the argument that "I don't understand, therefore it makes no sence" is fallacious.


In short, insofar as a concept's meaning is accepted tentatively, it's rejection or acceptance is tentative. We can disagree with the idea as Zizek presents it, but not merely because it has a concrete meaning with which we disagree. We think "psychic truth" is a flimsy basis for an argument about human behaviour because it's a malleable enough idea to be used in support of mutually exclusive allegedly inherent "personas".

Yes, this is a good analysis of the problem. If "psychic truth" is the base of antinomic ideas, then it probably is a bogus concept. For what I have read of Zizek, that would be his position; there is no "psychic truth" underlying the several "manifestations" of a given personality; the "manifestations" are the only "truth" of a psyché (and so, they are not "manifestations" at all). The "personality", therefore, isn't the cause of the personas; on the contrary, the "personality" is a purely mental construct, based on the data provided by the personas.

What it seems to me is that, as a good dialectician, and as a someone who admires Lenin's practice of "pushing things to the other side" as a therapeutic procedure, Zizek is exactly arguing the "antithesis" for the common place "thesis" about the relation between "personas" and "true psychés", in order to prepare the terrain for the proposal of a "synthesis". But this would require further evidence. As it is, your point stands.

(As a side note, there is no concept that isn't "tentative", either. We cannot arrive at a concept that is reducible to "concreteness"; all concepts are abstractions.)


By the way, I'm not blaming you, but you're a pain to quote. For some reason, when I click the quote button under your posts, I get a blank box. It's a minor inconvenience, really. I'm just wondering if it's characters in your name, or what.

Thank you, I didn't know that. I will try to address this with the admins.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

For some reason, when I click the quote button under your posts, I get a blank box.[/B] It's a minor inconvenience, really. I'm just wondering if it's characters in your name, or what.

I PMed an Admin, and this was her response:


He may need to cut and paste what he wants to quote, then click the yellow square quote button. I'm pretty sure its not because of the special character in your name.

Hope it helps.

Luís Henrique